UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  DIEGO 

from  the  collection  of 
Professor  Koppel  S.  Pinson 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF 

NATIONALITY     AND 

INTERNATIONALISM 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF 

NATIONALITY   AND 

INTERNATIONALISM 


BY 

W.  B.  PILLSBURY 

PROFESSOR   OP  PSYCHOLOGY,   DIBECTOB   OF   THE    PSYCHOLOGICAL 
LABORATORY,     UNIVERSITY     OP    MICHIGAN.          AUTHOR     OF 

"ESSENTIALS  op  PSYCHOLOGY,"   "ATTENTION,"  AITO 
"THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OP    REASONING" 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 

1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


TO 
M.  M.  P. 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  was  suggested  by  contact  that  I 
had  with  the  American  Greeks  returned  to 
Greece  to  fight  in  the  Balkan  War.  That  raised 
for  me  a  number  of  problems  which  I  have  tried 
to  answer  and  in  part  have  answered  to  my  own 
satisfaction.  On  the  more  theoretical  sides 
much  has  been  suggested  by  the  writings  of 
Graham  Wallas  and  his  school. 

The  position  taken  appears,  now  that  the 
work  is  finished,  to  be  a  compromise  between 
the  position  of  MacDougall,  with  his  great  in- 
sistence on  immediate  instinct,  and  that  taken 
by  Trotter  who  finds  all  social  phenomena  ex- 
plained by  the  fear  of  the  individual  for  the 
social  whole,  with  the  consequent  dominance  of 
convention.  I  have  shown  that  the  social  re- 
sponses are  in  part  due  to  each  of  these  forces. 
They  begin  in  a  rudimentary  way  as  instincts 
and  are  then  determined  by  conventions  and 
ideals  developed  through  experience  and  im- 
posed upon  the  group  by  the  ''herd  instinct." 
It  also  seems  necessary  to  insist  that  the  re- 
sult of  the  action  of  these  forces  is  not  un- 


viii  PKEFACE 

worthy.  One  obtains  the  impression  from  read- 
ing Trotter,  at  least,  that  the  action  of  man  in 
the  mass  is  altogether  deplorable,  that  all  of 
his  conventions  lead  to  undesirable  results. 
One  forgets  in  this  view  that  reason  itself  is 
nothing  more  than  a  control  of  action  and 
thought  by  wide  experience  and  tradition,  and 
that  while  conventions  at  times  enforce  an  ultra 
conservatism,  they  also  prevent  unconsidered 
action  on  .impulse,  as  well  as  thinking  by  un- 
controlled association.  This  is  an  instance  of 
a  general  tendency  in  ethics  and  psychology,  to 
forget  that  a  process  when  analyzed  is  the  same 
process  as  that  with  which  one  started. 

I  desire  to  thank  my  colleague,  Professor 
Beeves  Dow,  for  reading  certain  of  the  later 
chapters,  and  for  suggestions  he  made  in  con- 
nection with  them,  without,  however,  holding 
him  responsible  for  the  doctrines  themselves 
or  for  any  errors  that  may  have  escaped  me. 
I  also  desire  to  thank  my  wife  for  help  with 
the  proofs. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  FAOE 

I.    THE  PROBLEM  OF  NATIONALITY 1 

II.    THE  NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT — SOCIAL 

INSTINCTS 21 

III.  HATE  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE 63 

IV.  NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY 90 

V.    NATIONALITY  IN  THE  PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION  126 

VI.    THE  NATION  AND  THE  MOB  CONSCIOUSNESS  .     .  164 

VII.    THE  NATIONAL  MIND  AND  How  IT  THINKS,  FEELS, 

AND  ACTS 186 

VIII.    THE  NATION  AS  IDEAL 224 

IX.    NATIONALITY  AND  THE  STATE 249 

X.    NATIONALITY    AND    SUPER-NATIONALITY    AS    EX- 
PRESSED IN  A  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  .  278 


The 

Psychology  of  Nationality 
and   I  nternationalism 

CHAPTEE  I 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  NATIONALITY 

PKOBABLY  no  word  has  been  spoken  more  often 
in  the  political  discussions  of  recent  years  than 
the  word  ''nation"  or  "nationality."  No  prin- 
ciple has  been  more  frequently  referred  to  by 
all  sides  in  arguing  for  right  and  wrong  than 
that  each  nation  is  entitled  to  settle  its  own  af- 
fairs. One  may  assert  that  there  has  been  many 
a  declaration  of  independence  for  nationalities 
that  corresponds  to  the  American  Declaration 
of  Independence  for  the  individual,  that  each 
nation  has  a  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pur- 
suit of  happiness  in  its  own  right  just  as  the 
individual  American  claimed  that  right  for  him- 
self. We  are  assured  over  and  over  again  that 
the  next  peace  must  be  based  upon  the  principle 

1 


2        THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

of  nationality.  This  means  apparently  that  each 
nation,  however  small,  must  be  permitted  to 
manage  its  own  affairs,  without  interference 
from  any  outside  nation.  All  of  these  discus- 
sions presuppose  an  agreement  as  to  what  a 
nation  is  and  the  existence  of  definite  criteria 
for  deciding  conflicting  claims  between  peoples 
that  believe  a  group  of  people  to  belong  to  its 
own  rather  than  to  another  nation. 

That  these  criteria  are  not  altogether  clear 
in  different  cases  is  evident  from  numerous  dis- 
cussions. Both  France  and  Germany  claim 
Alsace  and  Lorraine,  one  on  the  basis  of  lan- 
guage and  the  desire  of  the  inhabitants,  the 
other  on  the  ground  of  formal  connection  earlier 
in  history,  and  community  of  race.  In  Ireland 
the  same  dispute  exists  in  another  form.  Are 
the  Orangemen  to  be  regarded  as  Irish  when 
they  prefer  to  be  English,  or  shall  they  deter- 
mine their  own  affiliations!  Here  the  question 
is  different  since  it  turns  on  whether  a  discord- 
ant element  in  a  community  is  to  be  regarded  as 
part  of  the  community  or  as  independent.  The 
problem  of  criteria  presents  itself  at  many 
points  on  the  borders  between  the  central  and 
eastern  and  southeastern  peoples.  Are  the  in- 
habitants of  the  Dalmatian  Islands  Italian  be- 
cause they  speak  the  language  and  because  their 
land  formed  part  of  the  Roman  and,  later,  part 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  NATIONALITY          3 

of  the  Venetian  Empire?  Are  the  people  of 
Dobrudja  Roumanians  or  Bulgarians'?  Is  the 
Macedonian,  Serb  or  Greek  or  Bulgarian?  Are 
Little  Russians  really  Russian  or  are  they  a 
separate  people  because  of  their  different  re- 
ligion and  slightly  different  language?  These 
and  many  similar  problems  must  be  settled  be- 
fore the  world  can  be  properly  partitioned,  and 
made  safe  for  democracy  or  guaranteed  a  per- 
manent peace.  But  before  any  one  of  them 
can  be  solved  or  even  given  a  basis  for  adequate 
discussion,  we  must  decide  what  a  nation  is  and 
discover  suitable  criteria  of  nationality. 

Many  suggestions  have  been  made  as  to  what 
constitutes  a  nation,  and  most  are  accepted  in 
greater  or  less  degree  in-  the  popular  discus- 
sions. Most  extended,  perhaps,  of  the  charac- 
teristics regarded  as  essential  is  language.  It 
is  felt  by  many  both  among  the  uninstructed 
and  the  more  scientific  thinkers  that  nationality 
is  measured  by  the  presence  of  a  common  lan- 
guage. We  feel  that  the  man  who  can  speak 
our  own  tongue  is  much  nearer  to  us  than  the 
man  with  whom  we  cannot  converse.  Many  of 
the  authorities  on  nationalization  insist  that  all 

• 

citizens  should  be  compelled  to  speak  the  lan- 
guage of  the  nation  if  they  are  to  be  regarded  as 
citizens.  One  group  of  scientists  implies,  if  it 
does  not  assert,  that  language  is  the  best  test  of 


4        THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

descent  in  doubtful  cases,  and  some  incline  to 
the  view  that  descent  and  language  must  always 
go  hand  in  hand.  The  second  criterion  of  na- 
tionality is  this  line  of  descent.  Not  infre- 
quently do  we  find  it  implied  that  nation  must 
have  some  close  connection  with  race — that 
common  physical  descent  is  essential  or  at  least 
highly  desirable  if  a  nation  is  to  be  a  unit  in  the 
best  and  fullest  sense.  The  statement  is  fre- 
quently made  that  the  wonderful  resistance  of 
France  to  what  seemed  to  be  overpowering 
force  was  due  to  the  purity  of  the  race,  to  the 
absence  of  alien  elements  in  the  race.  That 
the  racial  feature  is  important  in  our  own 
thought  in  popular  discussions  is  seen  in  the 
prevalence  of  race  prejudice.  If  one  assigns  an 
individual  to  another  race,  he  is  willing  to  ac- 
cept that  as  an  explanation  of  many  shortcom- 
ings and  will  be  suspicious  of  the  probable  mo- 
tives or  capacity  of  that  individual  until  he  has 
had  considerable  experience  with  the  individual 
or  with  the  race.  Any  popular  political  discus- 
sion will  bear  evidence  of  this  tendency.  Prob- 
ably language  and  race  are  the  elements  most 
frequently  accepted  in  current  discussions  as 
criteria  of  nationality. 

In  discussing  the  problem  of  nationality  in 
general,  distinction  must  be  made  between  the 
nation  and  the  state,  between  the  consciousness 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  NATIONALITY          5 

cf  communal  solidarity  and  the  accepted  politi- 
cd  organization.  For  many  purposes  the  two 
an  identical.  A  form  of  government  usually 
rests  upon  the  willingness  of  the  governed  to 
regard  themselves  as  part  of  the  social  whole ; 
and  i  successful  government  of  a  mass  of  peo- 
ple \\ill  frequently  develop  in  them  a  national 
unity.  For  our  present  purposes  we  must  dis- 
tinguish between  the  terms  no  matter  how  ready 
we  are  to  recognize  their  points  of  resemblance. 
By  a  nauon  we  mean  a  group  of  individuals  that 
feels  itself  one,  is  ready  within  limits  to  sacri- 
fice the  individual  for  the  group  advantage,  that 
prospers  as  a  whole,  that  has  a  group  of  emo- 
tions experienced  as  a  whole,  each  of  whom  re- 
joices with  the  advancement  and  suffers  with 
the  losses  of  the  group.  The  spirit  of  nation- 
ality may  be  defined  as  the  personification  of 
this  unity.  As  opposed  to  this  the  state  would 
be  merely  the  system  of  government,  a  unity  for 
the  sake  of  making  and  enforcing  laws.  It  rests 
upon  a  feeling  of  community  in  most  cases,  but 
frequently  the  recognized  unity  extends  beyond 
the  bounds  of  the  state  and  still  more  often  the 
edicts  of  the  state  may  be  enforced  upon  indi- 
viduals who  do  not  feel  themselves  a  part  of 
the  national  group.  For  our  purposes,  the  dis- 
tinction must  be  closely  drawn.  Nationality  is 
the  mental  state  or  community  in  behavior. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 


This  characterizes  the  nation,  and  this 
concerns  us. 

The  most  widely  accepted  theory  of  the  stite 
and  of  the  nation,  in  so  far  as  state  and  nation 
are  confused,  is  that  the  nation  is  an  enlarge- 
ment of  the  family,  and  the  state  a  development 
of  the  paternal  authority.  We  find  this  theory 
so  far  as  it  affects  the  state  definitely  formu- 
lated by  Plato  in  his  Laws  and  it  has  b^en  re- 
peated in  different  forms  by  most  writers  on 
the  development  of  society  from  his  time  on. 
If  this  theory  be  accepted  it  would  explain  why 
both  racial  descent  and  language  hive  been 
adopted  as  the  criteria  of  nationality.  Were 
the  human  organization  to  have  developed  from 
the  family,  all  members  of  the  nation  would 
speak  a  common  tongue  and  all  would  be  blood 
relations,  would  be  descendants  of  common 
ancestors.  One  could  expect  to  trace  the  mem- 
bers of  the  nation  by  the  physical  similarities 
as  well  as  by  the  similarities  in  speech.  The 
nation  would  be  a  real  biological  unit.  On  the 
mental  side,  one  might  think  of  the  nation  as 
united  by  an  extension  of  the  family  ties.  The 
solidarity  would  be  an  extension  of  the  family 
solidarity  and  the  social  instincts  would  be  the 
racial  instincts  in  a  wider  application. 

In  all  primitive  communities  there  is  some 
evidence  for  identity  between  the  family  and 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  NATIONALITY          7 

the  narrower  political  units.  Kindred  and  clan 
are  recognized  among  all  of  the  races  of  North- 
ern Europe  until  well  down  into  medieval 
times,  and  traces  can  be  found  in  remote  dis- 
tricts until  within  two  centuries.  The  system 
of  land  holding  in  early  England  shows  many 
traces  of  the  original  family  connections,  and 
still  more  strikingly,  the  system  of  money  pay- 
ments to  kindred  for  slaying  a  member  is  con- 
clusive evidence  of  the  solidarity  of  the  kindred 
in  all  the  Teutonic  peoples.  Here  we  seem  to 
approach  the  condition  demanded  by  the  theory 
that  the  children  of  one  father  form  a  single 
group  and  these  are  united  for  purposes  of  re- 
ceiving and  paying  the  weregild  or  blood  money 
into  larger  groups  or  kindred  to  the  fourth  and 
sometimes  to  the  eighth  or  ninth  degree  of  re- 
lationship. The  kindred  or  clan  was  an  ad- 
ministrative unit  as  well  as  a  group  bound  by 
ties  of  friendliness,  a  social  unit.  From  the  clan 
various  groupings  are  made  in  different  lands, 
but  in  all  alike  the  larger  groups  are  aggrega- 
tions of  clans.  Whether  the  lines  of  descent  are 
recognized  in  the  larger  groups  is  not  so  clear. 
Certainly  there  is  evidence  that  new  groupings 
of  clans  that  do  not  recognize  degrees  of  blood 
relationship  may  be  made  in  an  emergency,  and 
that  in  ordinary  circumstances  the  degree  of 
blood  relationship,  if  the  unit  extends  beyond 


8        THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

the  clan,  has  little  to  do  with  the  system  of  or- 
ganization. 

That  this  closeness  of  blood  relationship  is 
not  the  only  factor  in  the  development  of  the 
notion  of  a  social  whole  and  may  be  in  a  meas- 
ure opposed  to  it  and  even  need  to  be  overcome 
before  the  larger  allegiances  can  be  fully  de- 
veloped is  clear  from  a  number  of  circumstances 
of  the  organization,  both  in  the  ancient  Teutonic 
peoples  and  in  the  modern  primitive.  First  we 
have  good  evidence  that  the  notion  of  kinship 
is  in  some  degree  symbolic,  that  while  the  fam- 
ily is  thought  of  as  a  group  descended  from  a 
single  father,  this  is  not  necessarily  true  in  a 
strict  sense.  In  the  first  place  the  relation  was 
never  quite  restricted  to  blood  relationship. 
The  practice  has  grown  up  almost  everywhere 
of  tracing  the  connection  only  on  one  side, 
through  one  parent.  In  most  of  the  Teutonic 
and  Celtic  peoples  only  the  relationship  on  the 
male  side  was  accepted  in  the  constitution  of 
the  clan.  While  the  maternal  relations  might  at 
times  be  recognized  as  in  the  weregild,  the 
degree  of  their  contribution  was  always  less 
than  that  of  the  paternal  and  in  many  of  the 
duties  the  contribution  of  the  maternal  kin  was 
voluntary.1  Obviously  the  ties  of  emotion, 
which  are  as  strong  on  one  side  as  on  the  other, 

'Phillpott:     "Kindred  and  Clan." 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  NATIONALITY          9 

were  not  the  basis  of  the  connection  of  the  kin- 
dred. It  was  rather  a  convenient  form  of  polit- 
ical organization. 

The  symbolic  character  of  the  clan  is  evident, 
too,  from  the  fact  that  a  man  might  be  adopted 
into  the  group  and  have  all  of  the  rights  of 
the  natural  members.  In  many  of  the  savage 
tribes  some  symbol  of  adoption  may  be  more  im- 
portant in  determining  the  relationship  than  the 
known  paternity.  Among  the  Todas  of  India 
a  son  known  to  be  the  offspring  of  another  man 
may  be  accepted  as  the  son  by  a  ceremony  per- 
formed at  the  birth,  and  where  the  ceremony 
and  known  facts  are  at  variance,  the  ceremony 
is  the  deciding  factor.  The  limitations  of  blood 
relationship  are  evident  among  the  many  peo- 
ples who  measure  relationship  by  totems.  The 
members  of  the  totem  are  restricted  to  descend- 
ants through  the  male  side.  That  kinship 
as  such  cannot  be  regarded  as  the  only  meas- 
ure of  the  tribe  appears  from  the  requirement 
that  marriage  must  always  be  with  a  member  of 
another  Totem.  At  this  stage,  race  and  kindred, 
as  measured  by  the  possession  of  the  same  To- 
temic  symbol,  must  be  distinct,  since  the  mar- 
riages are  usually  restricted  to  members  of  the 
same  tribe,  but  to  those  that  belong  in  another 
immediate  family.  Even  in  the  Teutonic  peoples 
other  wider  systems  of  organization  develop 


10      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

that  are  recognized  as  distinct  from  the  family 
or  kindred.  The  chief  is  not  the  mere  heredi- 
tary head  of  the  tribe  or  group  of  tribes  but  fre- 
quently seems  to  derive  his  authority  from  some 
other  source.  Early,  the  leadership  of  the 
manor,  of  the  war  chief,  and  later  of  the  church 
seemed  to  compete  with  the  tie  of  kinship  to  its 
ultimate  destruction.  It  is  this  wider  com- 
munity from  which  the  modern  nation  has  de- 
veloped rather  than  from  the  tribe. 

Granted  then  that  the  relationship  of  the  fam- 
ily is  the  one  from  which  the  relationship  of  the 
nation  developed  in  the  beginning,  it  must  still 
be  admitted  that  sufficient  departures  appear 
later  to  make  the  nation  a  different  entity  and 
differently  derived  from  the  family  as  an  ex- 
pression of  mere  kinship.  Either,  when  the  kin- 
ship becomes  remote,  the  tribe  or  clan  takes  on 
a  symbolic  character  that  changes  it  essentially 
from  the  family  proper,  or  new  relationships 
develop  which  are  different  in  kind  and  in  the 
emotions  that  they  express  from  those  of  the 
family.  In  either  case  the  nation  raises  a  new 
problem  in  group  psychology,  and  the  questions 
that  arise  with  reference  to  what  a  particular 
nation  may  be  cannot  be  answered  by  tracing 
the  lines  of  descent..  We  have,  then,  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  nature  of  the  nation  or  of  nation- 
ality to  ask  one  by  one  a  series  of  questions 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  NATIONALITY        11 

that  grow  out  of  the  assumption  that  the  na- 
tion may  be  an  outgrowth  of  the  family,  and  of 
the  different  theories  that  oppose  or  limit  this 
theory.  First,  how  far  are  nation  and  race 
identical  and  the  nation  merely  a  group  of  in- 
dividuals of  similar  descent  with  consequent 
physical  and  mental  characters.  Second,  how 
far  may  one  develop  the  mental  qualities  that 
constitute  the  nation  in  individuals  of  a  differ- 
ent race. 

The  first  question  is  particularly  important 
in  the  light  of  the  widespread  belief  in  the  im- 
portance of  race  which  the  victims  of  the  dis- 
crimination regard  as  race  prejudice  and  the 
supporters  as  a  necessary  means  of  keeping  the 
race  reasonably  pure.  The  extreme  upholders 
of  this  theory  insist  that  no  real  nation  can  be 
developed  from  mixed  blood,  or,  at  least,  that 
the  more  pure  the  blood  of  the  nation,  the 
stronger  and  more  unified  is  that  nation.  Op- 
posed to  this  is  a  group  equally  positive  in  its 
belief  that  only  a  mixed  race  may  be  strong, 
although  few  go  to  the  extreme  of  insisting  that 
the  greater  the  mixture  the  stronger  the  race. 
In  these  popular  discussions,  even  in  race  con- 
gresses there  is  frequently  more  prejudice  than 
reason.  The  members  of  the  races  that  are  re- 
garded as  inferior  always  point  to  the  accom- 
plishments of  the  best  of  their  race  as  evidence 


12      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

of  what  they  might  accomplish  were  they  given 
a  chance,  while  the  believers  in  the  superiority 
of  one  race  or  group  of  races  emphasize  what 
the  worst  of  the  lower  races  have  done  or  failed 
to  do  and  forget  the  lower  individuals  in  their 
own  or  the  worst  acts  of  their  best. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  at  present  clear  evi- 
dence of  racial  capacity  is  lacking.  At  the  ex- 
tremes no  one  would  assert  that  all  the  races 
are  equal,  on  the  other  hand  no  one  can  grade 
the  races  with  respect  to  their  intelligence. 
Standards  of  accomplishment  are  absolutely 
different.  Tagore  denies  that  one  can  measure 
ability  by  business  capacity  or  attainments  in 
pure  science.  He  insists  that  artistic  apprecia- 
tion is  quite  as  important.  Others  insist  that 
race  prejudice  and  natural  environmental  con- 
ditions have  prevented  the  backward  races  from 
getting  a  fair  chance  and  that  they  are  back- 
ward because  of  that  rather  than  from  lack  of 
capacity.  I  suppose  that  until  they  have  their 
chance  and  really  succeed  this  would  not  prove 
capacity,  however  much  it  may  complicate  the 
discussion  or  the  possibility  of  asserting  equal- 
ity. It  is  not  sufficient  to  say  that  the  negro 
has  not  done  more  because  prejudice  prevents 
him  from  being  accepted  as  an  equal  in  the  pro- 
fessions. It  may  in  part  explain  the  failure,  but 
individuals  of  other  races  overcome  prejudices 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  NATIONALITY        13 

and  no  one  can  say  whether  these  prejudices  are 
greater  or  less  than  those  under  which  the  negro 
labors.  This  makes  it  a  question  whether  it  is 
of  any  advantage  to  have  a  nation  all  of  one 
race,  whether  in  fact  any  emphasis  at  all  is  to 
be  put  upon  the  line  of  descent.  We  need  not 
settle  this  problem  if  we  could ;  suffice  it  for  our 
purpose  to  indicate  that  race,  could  one  know 
it  with  certainty,  is  not  necessarily  final  in 
determining  capacity. 

The  strongest  advocates  of  the  theory  hold 
that  race  and  nation  are  or  should  be  identical, 
believe  that  races  are  distinct  physical  entities 
which  may  be  discovered  by  measuring  the 
members  of  the  race.  The  anthropometrists  of 
the  last  generation  worked  on  the  assumption 
that  it  was  possible  to  discover  a  group  of  char- 
acteristics that  went  together,  which  when 
known  would  characterize  the  race.  The  signs 
upon  which  they  insisted  most  strongly  were 
the  size  and  shape  of  the  skull,  the  shape  of  the 
nose  and  other  features,  stature,  and  pigmen- 
tation. Some  of  them  seem  to  believe  that  one 
could  measure  the  skull  of  an  inhabitant  of  the 
British  Isles  and  determine  whether  he  was  de- 
scended from  the  pre-Celtic  .primitive,  from 
Celt,  from  Saxon  or  Norman.  While  it  cannot 
be  said  that  this  theory  is  definitely  wrong,  re- 
cently accumulated  evidence  tends  to  discredit 


14      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

the  more  extreme  views.  Many  of  the  charac- 
ters regarded  as  fixed  seem  to  be  open  to  change 
under  the  influence  of  environment.  One  of  the 
most  striking  facts  in  favor  of  the  statements  is 
the  well  authenticated  series  of  changes  in  some 
German  emigrants  who  settled  in  1817  among 
the  Georgians  near  Tim's.  Originally  fair- 
haired,  blue-eyed,  with  coarse  features,  in  two 
generations  they  have  developed  dark  hair  and 
brown  eyes  with  a  "noble  oval  face. ' '  This  was 
without  inter-marriage  with  the  natives.  The 
change  is  ascribed  to  climate  and  general  en- 
vironment alone.2  Boas  found  a  marked  change 
in  the  cephalic  index  of  Russian  Jews  and  Ital- 
ians in  America  in  only  one  generation.  The 
Jews  became  markedly  more  dolichocephalic, 
while  the  long-headed  southern  Italians  became 
considerably  broader-headed.  Why  this  change 
should  take  place  Boas  does  not  pretend  to  say, 
but  it  is  apparently  because  of  food  and  en- 
vironment. As  the  cephalic  index  or  ratio  be- 
tween length  and  breadth  of  the  head  is  m^de 
the  cornerstone  of  race  by  many  anthropo- 
metrists  it  is  especially  significant  that  it  should 
prove  so  variable.  Evidence  of  the  change  in 
mental  characters  is  also  apparent  in  the  change 
of  status  of  the  immigrant  in  America  and  in 
other  cases  of  widespread  race  migrations.  If 

"Keane:     "Ethnology,"  p.  203. 


one  add  the  two  reasons  for  skepticism  to- 
gether, it  would  seem  that  it  is  impossible  to 
detect  race  except  by  tracing  the  history  of  the 
descent,  a  history  which  is  lacking  in  most  cases, 
and  if  the  physical  and  mental  characters 
change  with  environment,  it  would  make  little 
contribution  to  the  problem  of  race  could  we 
succeed.  Descent  has  little  influence  in  deter- 
mining the  character  of  the  individual  over  long 
periods  of  time  and  hence  can  have  little  effect 
upon  the  nation. 

Could  one  determine  the  race  and  did  race 
have  all  of  the  significance  that  has  been 
ascribed  to  it,  we  would  be  little  farther  ahead 
in  the  discussion  of  the  nature  of  the  modern 
problems  of  nationality.  All  of  the  modern 
European  nations  are  mongrel,  are  compounded 
of  numerous  elements  and  many  of  them  are 
composed  of  much  the  same  elements  in  a  slight- 
ly different  combination.  If  we  compare  the  na- 
tions that  were  aligned  on  opposite  sides  in  the 
great  war  we  find  that  they  had  quite  as  many 
common  elements  as  those  that  were  fighting  to- 
gether. In  each  nation  wave  after  wave  of  con- 
quering peoples  has  settled  and  been  absorbed 
by  mixture  with  the  conquered.  The  original 
primitives  were  probably  absorbed  in  the  con- 
quering Celts,  affecting  only  a  few  of  their  cus- 
toms, the  Celts  in  less  degree  by  the  Romans, 


16      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

themselves  a  much  mixed  race,  and  the  more  or 
less  Romanized  Celts  by  the  Teutons  in  the  west 
and  by  the  Slavs  and  Mongols  farther  west.  If 
one  follow  Keane  3  in  a  classification  the  Eng- 
lish would  be  Celto-Teutonic ;  the  French,  Ibero- 
Celto-Teutonic ;  the  Italians,  Liguro-Celto- 
Italic;  the  Russians,  Finno-Slavonic.  The  cen- 
tral powers  would  be  made  up  of  Germans  who 
are  Slavo-Celto-Teutonic,  the  Prussians,  Letto- 
Teuto-Slavonic,  the  Austrians  would  add  vari- 
ous Slav  and  Mongol  elements,  the  Bulgars  and 
Turks  would  add  new  complexes  which  were  as 
remote  from  one  group  as  from  the  other.  The 
ethnic  composition  of  the  opposing  groups  offers 
no  explanation  of  the  alliances.  The  elements 
that  are  mixed  are  much  the  same  and  the  pro- 
portion of  the  different  components  does  not 
differ  sufficiently  to  explain  the  lines  followed 
by  the  alliances.  The  nations  are  not  racially 
pure,  nor  do  they  approximate  purity.  The 
components  were  found  on  each  side  in  the  al- 
liance and  approximately  as  many  on  one  side 
as  on  the  other.  Possibly  a  few  more  Celts  on 
the  side  of  the  Allies,  a  larger  percentage  of 
Teutons  on  the  other,  but  in  no  sense  was  it  a 
race  war.  In  the  determination  of  national  lines 
in  general,  race  is  no  more  important.  There 
is  no  pure  race  in  any  nation.  In  the  race  mix- 

*  Keane:     "Ethnology,"  p.  201. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  NATIONALITY        17 

tures  that  constitute  nations,  it  is  not  the  nu- 
merical predominance  of  one  racial  group  which 
determines  the  character  of  the  nation.  For 
that  we  must  look  to  more  subtle  causes. 

The  prevailing  language  of  a  nation  may  of- 
fer a  somewhat  less  uncertain  criterion  of  the 
racial  descent  than  the  physical  measurements. 
One  at  least  can  say  what  the  language  is  and 
can  trace  the  elements  that  have  entered  into 
its  composition  in  the  development  of  the  peo- 
ples. But  language  is  probably  no  more  ac- 
curate than  physical  measurements  as  an  in- 
dication of  the  racial  components  of  a  nation 
or  of  community  of  spirit  of  its  inhabitants. 
The  language  of  a  nation  varies  with  its  racial 
components,  but  one  can  be  sure  neither  of  the 
numerical  nor  political  dominance  of  the  races 
by  the  languages.  Sometimes  the  conquering 
race  may  impose  its  language  as  the  Romans 
did  on  Gaul  when  the  race  contribution  was  com- 
paratively slight.  Again  the  conquered  persist 
in  their  original  speech  practically  unaffected  as 
did  the  English  at  the  Norman  Conquest.  Com- 
munity of  language  does  not  mean  community 
of  spirit  or  the  reverse.  The  Irish  will  not  ad- 
mit that  they  are  English  although  they  speak 
the  tongue  nor  do  the  Swiss  follow  the  linguistic 
boundaries  in  their  feeling  of  nationality.  The 
German  Swiss  is  as  much  Swiss  as  the  French, 


18      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

the  Italian  as  the  German.  While  the  sympa- 
thies of  the  communities  in  the  great  war  seem 
to  have  followed  the  speech  of  the  district  in 
some  degree,  it  was  not  sufficient  to  endanger 
at  all  the  national  unity.  On  the  whole  it  seems 
that  a  common  language  may  be  either  a  result 
of  national  unity,  or  it  may  be  a  sign  of  the  his- 
toric development  of  the  peoples.  When  a  na- 
tional spirit  develops  as  among  the  Irish,  a  na- 
tional language  may  be  fostered  to  give  it 
strength  or  serve  as  a  symbol  of  that  unity.  In 
that  case  it  is  rather  a  symbol  or  effect  of  that 
community  of  spirit  than  its  cause.  We  must 
not  deny  that  a  common  speech  is  an  important 
element  in  furthering  the  national  spirit.  All 
that  is  intended  is  to  assert  that  it  is  not  a  sine 
qua  non, — that  language  and  language  alone 
does  not  measure  and  indicate  the  nationality. 

In  this  brief  survey  we  have  developed  a  for- 
midable list  of  negatives.  We  have  found  many 
elements  that  might  and  are  frequently  assumed 
to  furnish  a  criterion  for  nationality  which 
obviously  are  either  without  influence,  have  less 
influence  than  one  is  inclined  to  believe  at  first 
sight,  or  are  impossible  of  application.  Physical 
descent  cannot  be  used  as  a  criterion.  For,  in 
the  first  place,  it  cannot  be  traced  with  accuracy 
over  a  sufficiently  long  period  to  settle  dis- 
puted points.  Where  it  can  be  traced  in  historic 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  NATIONALITY        19 

periods  we  find  it  does  not  correspond  accurate- 
ly to  the  present  political  boundaries.  Large  na- 
tions that  have  remained  in  their  territory  for  a 
long  period  may  change  their  allegiance.  When 
large  numbers  of  descendants  leave  the  mother 
country  they  may  or  may  not  carry  with  them 
the  essentials  of  their  native  land.  Americans 
ceased  to  be  English  in  a  few  generations,  Al- 
satians ceased  to  be  German  in  an  equally  short 
period.  Where  individuals  move  from  one  coun- 
try to  another  they  tend  to  change  their  al- 
legiance, and  frequently  in  the  second  genera^ 
tion  are  by  no  means  to  be  distinguished  from 
the  people  among  whom  they  live. 

Granted  that  physical  descent  were  a  basis 
for  determining  nationality,  it  cannot  be  discov- 
ered by  other  than  historic  methods.  The  phys- 
ical features  which  might  be  regarded  as  mark- 
ing nations  or  even  races  are  not  sufficiently  cer- 
tain nor  sufficiently  permanent  to  be  an  aid  in 
deciding  the  question.  Historical  evidence 
shows  that  nearly  all  races  are  mongrel,  and 
that  where  the  lines  of  division  can  be  traced  at 
all  the  mixtures  are  not  markedly  different  for 
any  of  the  countries  of  Western  Europe.  An- 
thropometry cannot  solve  the  problems  that  his- 
tory leaves  in  dispute.  Were  a  commission  to  be 
given  power  to  sort  the  individuals  in  the  Bal- 
kan Peninsula  into  ethnic  groups  and  then  to  as- 


20       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

sign  boundaries  and  rearrange  the  population 
so  that  all  people  of  similar  physical  character- 
istics were  in  the  same  communities,  it  is  safe 
to  say  that  the  confusion  in  the  Balkans  would 
be  increased  rather  than  diminished,  and  that 
the  result  would  not  make  for  the  happiness  of 
the  individuals.  Even  the  more  readily  discov- 
ered speech,  while  ordinarily  following  racial 
lines,  is  not  an  absolute  guide.  It  is  an  indica- 
tion of  the  probable  allegiance,  but  neither  a 
necessary  cause  nor  an  effect  of  national  spirit. 
For  the  final  deciding  factors,  the  final  ex- 
planation, one  must  look  not  to  these  physical 
or  fixed  mental  characteristics  and  habits  but  to 
purely  mental  qualities,  or  to  mental  qualities 
based  upon  physical  characteristics.  The  na- 
tional characteristics  are  to  be  discovered  not 
directly  but  only  through  the  responses  of  the 
individual  and  through  the  responses  that  be- 
tray his  emotional  and  intellectual  activities.  If 
you  are  to  know  to  what  national  group  an  in- 
dividual belongs  the  simplest  way  is  to  ask  him, 
and  while  his  answer  cannot  always  be  trusted, 
but  must  be  interpreted  in  terms  of  his  general 
behavior,  it  is,  if  he  speaks  the  truth,  a  better 
criterion  than  history,  or  racial  descent,  or 
physical  measurements.  Nationality  is  first  of 
all  a  psychological  and  sociological  problem; 
only  indirectly  can  it  be  determined  by  an- 
thropometry or  even  by  history. 


CHAPTER  H 

THE   NATION  AS   A   PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT— SOCIAL 
INSTINCTS 

To  have  discovered  in  the  last  chapter  that 
the  nation  cannot  be  explained  from  physical 
laws  alone  does  not  free  us  from  attempting  to 
discover  what  laws  do  control  it.  For  the 
psychologist  believes  that  man's  so-called  men- 
tal nature  is  controlled  by  laws  that  are  quite 
as  assured  if  somewhat  more  difficult  to  discover 
than  the  laws  of  his  physical  organism.  If  we 
cannot  believe  that  a  nation  originates  by  the 
grr.dual  accumulation  of  offspring  from  com- 
mon progenitors  as  a  coral  island  grows,  we  are 
not  therefore  absolved  from  all  attempts  to  de- 
termine what  the  laws  are  that  govern  the  com- 
mon action  of  groups  and  explain  the  fact 
that  certain  individuals  unite  into  a  group,  ac- 
cept as  proper  the  acts  and  desires  of  the  other 
members  of  the  group,  and  refuse  adherence 
to  the  ideals  of  other  groups.  In  fact,  we  must 
endeavor  to  learn  why,  when  the  groups  have 
been  formed,  each  has  many  of  the  aspects  of  a 
single  individual  and  acts  toward  other  groups 

21 


22      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

very  much  as  if  that  were  a  rival  individual. 
One  may  reduce  many  of  the  acts  to  common 
terms  and  find  in  these  many  points  in  which 
the  nation  as  a  whole  resembles  the  activities 
of  individual  animal  or  man. 

In  the  explanation  of  the  acts  of  social  wholes 
as  of  an  individual  the  most  striking  single  fact 
is  the  divergence  between  the  motives  and 
forces  that  the  individual  himself  assigns  to  his 
acts  and  the  explanation  which  seems  to  the 
scientist  the  real  explanation.  One  can  place 
little  reliance  in  the  statement  that  the  agent 
gives  of  his  motives  or  of  the  forces  that  he 
believes  to  control  him.  It  is  the  privilege  of 
the  scientist  to  arrogate  to  himself  omniscience 
as  to  the  causes  that  impel  the  actions  of 
the  mass.  This  may  be  only  for  effect  and  is 
frequently  far  from  being  accepted  by  the  agent 
or  by  other  scientists  as  final.  At  the  worst, 
our  knowledge  is  sufficient  to  indicate  that  many 
of  the  acts  that  seem  to  us  simplest  are  really 
the  effects  of  changes  wrought  in  the  nervous 
system  in  some  remote  period  of  evolution.  It 
is  the  duty  of  the  psychologist  to  trace  in  every 
way  the  present  responses  to  their  causes  in 
early  formed  habits,  and  in  the  predispositions 
of  the  organism  at  the  birth  of  the  individual. 
This  can  be  done  only  by  study  of  the  behavior 
of  the  individual  or  of  the  society  under  differ- 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      23 

ent  conditions,  and  by  comparing  the  action  of 
individuals  and  societies  that  have  been  sub- 
jected to  those  different  conditions.  The  results 
of  all  of  these  studies  have  been  combined  in  a 
number  of  different  theories  of  social  groups. 
One  theory,  which  is  perhaps  most  fundamental, 
would  explain  the  social  group  as  the  embodi- 
ment of  instincts.  A  second  finds  the  closest 
analogy  for  the  action  of  a  nation,  even  when 
the  individuals  are  so  numerous  and  so  remote 
that  they  may  communicate  only  by  the  press 
and  through  representatives,  in  the  action  of  a 
crowd  and  would  ascribe  to  the  crowd  certain 
peculiar  qualities  that  render  it  different  from 
a  mere  group  of  individuals  and  much  different 
from  our  ordinary  conception  of  a  crowd.  A 
third  endows  the  nation  or  any  social  group 
with  a  self  in  addition  to  the  selves  of  the  sep- 
arate individuals,  finds  in  its  action  evidence 
that  it  thinks,  feels,  and  acts  as  a  unit  apart 
from  the  thoughts  of  its  component  selves.  The 
first  theory  may  be  regarded  as  analytic.  It 
distinguishes  different  phases  of  the  action  of 
the  social  unit  and  finds  similarities  for  each  in 
the  action  of  individual  animals  and  men.  The 
last  two  are  more  general  analogies,  are  satis- 
fied to  point  out  similarities  between  well  known 
phenomena  and  the  action  of  the  nation,  and  re- 


24      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

gard  that  analogy  as  an  explanation.   Each  may 
be  discussed  in  order. 

Since  Darwin  there  has  been  a  growing  ten- 
dency to  explain  the  acts  of  man  and  of  the  ani- 
mals in  terms  of  instinct.  This  means  that  most 
of  the  acts  are  made  for  some  reason  that  can- 
not be  understood  by  the  individual,  in  the  case 
of  man,  or  by  an  observer  unless  one  assumes 
that  they  are  an  expression  of  innate  disposi- 
tions,— dispositions  that  have  survived  because 
they  were  essential  to  the  existence  of  the  or- 
ganism. Many  of  these  acts  which  we  call  in- 
stinctive are  performed  in  advance  of  any  op- 
portunity to  learn  them,  and  in  certain  cases  the 
organism  in  question  would  be  better  off  if  they 
did  not  appear.  The  infant  takes  nourishment 
at  the  first  opportunity  and  with  movements  al- 
most as  perfect  at  first  as  after  frequent  prac- 
tice. The  first  nest  of  a  robin  is  as  well  made  as 
the  last,  and  the  beaver  needs  no  practice  to  cut 
a  tree  in  the  most  approved  fashion.  These  in- 
stinctive movements  are  evidently  not  rational 
as  they  frequently  are  performed  in  every  detail 
under  circumstances  in  which  they  are  of  no 
value.  Thus  a  squirrel  will  give  a  perfect  imi- 
tation on  a  carpet  of  the  actions  used  in  burying 
a  nut,  and  James  cites  an  instance  of  a  dog  that 
carefully  laid  down  a  bone  in  a  room,  and  after 
making  movements  as  if  scraping  dirt  over  it, 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      25 

left  it  in  full  sight.  Many  of  the  fears  of  man 
are  absolutely  valueless,  probably  a  detriment 
in  the  environment  in  which  most  of  us  now  live. 
Fear  of  snakes  in  the  city  dweller  or  in  the 
North  European,  fear  of  the  dark,  fear  of  open 
places,  as  we  find  them  in  certain  of  the 
neuroses,  have  no  value  in  protecting  the  indi- 
vidual and  no  chance  to  develop  through  habit. 
Still  they  appear  in  the  most  unexpected  places 
and  in  the  most  rational  of  men. 

One  might  think  of  these  instincts  as  inher- 
ited habits,  activities  acquired  by  progenitors 
which  have  been  transmitted  to  the  present  gen- 
eration. This  explanation  is  accurate  save  for 
the  method  of  origin.  The  modern  biologist 
objects  to  the  assumption  of  an  inheritance  of 
the  characters  acquired  during  the  life  of  the 
individual.  Instead  he  insists  that  instincts, 
like  all  changes  in  structure,  arise  through  some 
chance  change  in  the  germ  plasm,  the  cell  set 
aside  at  the  first  stage  in  the  development  of 
the  parent  and  remaining  in  the  body  of  the 
parent  unchanged  until  it  begins  to  develop  into 
the  individual  in  question.  This  reproduces  the 
general  type  of  the  race,  but  may  undergo 
variations  of  slight  amount  in  the  new  individ- 
ual. No  two  are  quite  alike,  and  occasionally 
very  wide  divergencies  from  type  present  them- 
selves. Some  of  the  changes  may  be  due  to  the 


26      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

mating  of  unlike  parents,  others  seem  to  be 
owing  to  chemical  changes  in  the  cell,  which  oc- 
cur for  an  unknown  reason.  When  they  occur, 
the  changes  in  structure  or  the  acts  induced  by 
these  changes  may  be  beneficial  and  increase  the 
chances  for  survival  of  the  individual,  or  they 
may  be  harmful  and  cause  him  to  act  in  a  way 
that  shall  result  in  his  death.  Thus,  if  some 
change  in  the  nervous  system  cause  the  new 
member  to  like  and  eat  a  food  that  is  abundant 
and  nourishing,  but  which  has  been  instinctively 
disliked  by  the  race  up  to  that  time,  the  prob- 
ability of  survival  will  be  increased.  If,  on  the 
contrary,  the  change  produce  an  appetite  for  a 
poison  of  frequent  occurrence  in  the  environ- 
ment, the  individual  will  be  speedily  eliminated. 
Similarly  any  new  instinct  of  caring  for  the 
young  will  cause  the  survival  of  a  greater  num- 
ber and  so  be  self -perpetuating.  The  race  that 
develops  that  instinct  will  soon  outnumber  and 
may  crowd  out  the  others  that  fail  to  develop 
it.  An  appetite  for  its  own  young  would  result 
in  the  elimination  of  the  race  in  which  it  ap- 
peared. One  might  picture  this  process  of  de- 
velopment of  instincts  by  natural  selection  as  an 
enormous  game  of  chance  in  which  the  stakes 
are  life  and  death  for  the  individual  and  in- 
crease or  decrease  in  numbers  for  the  race.  The 
chance  lies  in  the  appearance  of  the  changes  in 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      27 

the  germ  plasm,  the  stakes  are  won  for  the  race 
provided  the  individual  lives  long  enough  to 
propagate  his  kind,  and  the  degree  of  success  is 
measured  by  the  number  propagated  and  the 
number  that  survive. 

Most  acts  that  are  essential  to  the  survival  of 
the  individual  and  to  the  propagation  of  his 
kind  are  instinctive.  They  cannot  be  left  to 
learning  and  so  are  insured  by  being  established 
in  the  nervous  system  at  birth.  They  have  been 
essential  to  the  life  of  the  ancestors  and  so  have 
been  retained  when  they  appeared  by  chance. 
These  individual  and  racial  instincts  express' 
themselves  in  two  ways.  The  simpler  are  acts 
which  are  performed  at  once  when  the  stimulus 
or  occasion  arises.  Taking  nourishment,  sleep 
and  exercise,  movements  of  withdrawal  from 
dangerous  stimuli  are  of  this  character.  The 
second  form  is  marked  out  in  the  rough  and  is 
controlled  in  detail  by  the  feelings.  Most  in- 
stinctive movements  that  serve  to  approach  or 
retain  objects  are  pleasant;  those  that  consti- 
tute acts  of  withdrawal  are  unpleasant.  In  the 
more  complicated  acts  only  the  pleasantness  of 
attainment  of  ends  that  are  beneficial  and  the 
unpleasantness  that  attaches  to  the  presence  of 
harmful  stimuli  give  evidence  of  instinct.  The 
movements  are  not  mechanical,  are  not  pre- 
scribed, but  again  may  be  regarded  as  chance 


28      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

responses,  in  which  pleasure  or  displeasure  de- 
cides whether  they  shall  be  made,  or  the  results 
accepted  or  rejected.  Thus  a  chick  will  peck 
at  any  bright  object  at  first  and,  when  it  takes 
into  its  mouth  a  bitter  tasting  worm,  will  at 
once  reject  it.  The  movement  is  not  discrimi- 
nating. The  final  test  is  the  pleasure  or  dis- 
pleasure of  the  taste.  A  youth  selects  his  mate 
on  the  basis  of  the  instinctive  pleasure  aroused 
by  her  features  or  form;  we  judge  the  conse- 
quences of  our  acts  and  plan  our  future  activi- 
ties in  terms  of  the  pleasure  or  satisfaction  they 
are  likely  to  produce.  In  general,  then,  our  most 
important  acts  are  prescribed  at  first  by  in- 
stincts, and  all  through  life  the  instinctive  feel- 
ings of  pleasure  or  satisfaction  and  discomfort 
or  dissatisfaction  serve  to  select  and  guide  our 
movements. 

Many  of  the  fundamentals  in  human  nature 
that  make  social  life  possible  and  agreeable  are 
also  instincts.  The  pleasure  in  association  with 
others,  the  responses  of  features  and  voice  to 
the  looks  and  remarks  of  friends  constitute  the 
simplest,  least  active  processes.  At  the  other 
extreme  stand  the  incentives  to  cooperate,  the 
impulses  of  self-sacrifice  for  the  social  unit 
upon  which  depends  the  formation  of  nation 
and  state.  In  this  discussion  we  must  distin- 
guish the  cooperative  from  the  antagonistic  so- 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      29 

cial  instincts.  The  first  serve  to  hold  the  group 
together  and  further  the  interests  of  its  mem- 
bers. Opposed  to  these  are  the  instincts  of  co- 
operative defense  and  aggression,  instincts 
which  unite  the  members  of  one  whole  against 
another  for  the  sake  of  advancement  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  other.  The  one  makes  possible  the 
organization  of  the  peaceful  society,  the  other 
the  organization  for  war.  The  second  in  a  meas- 
ure depends  upon  the  first,  but  contains  ele- 
ments of  self-sacrifice  that  are  not  required  for 
it.  The  one  presupposes  life  together  in  the  ab- 
sence of  hostile  tribes,  the  other  is  a  develop- 
ment of  a  life  of  conflict  between  rival  groups. 
It  is  probable  that  the  second  may  have  been 
the  first  to  develop — that  only  when  there  were 
dangerous  rival  tribes  was  it  necessary  to  form 
a  larger  social  grouping.  However  this  may  be, 
it  is  certain  that  at  present  we  can  see  traces 
of  each.  We  may  begin  with  a  treatment  of  the 
cooperative  or  intra-social  instincts  or  forces 
and  pass  on  later  to  the  instincts  of  hate  and 
conflict,  the  inter-social. 

The  fundamental  instincts  upon  which  co- 
operation is  dependent  may  be  reduced  to  two ; 
sympathy  for  the  other  individuals,  and  fear  of 
the  social  group  or  of  other  members  of  the 
group.  Upon  these  two  develops  a  system  of 
ideals  and  social  concepts  which  constitutes  the 


30      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

fabric  of  the  social  system.  These  ideals  when 
fully  developed  seem  to  have  many  of  the  posi- 
tive features  of  law.  The  instincts  of  sympathy 
are  among  the  most  definite  of  the  social  re- 
sponses. When  one  observes  the  suffering  of 
another  one  suffers  with  him  in  the  literal  sense 
of  the  Greek  original.  One  cannot  read  of  eyes 
gouged  out  without  a  strain  of  discomfort  in 
one's  own  eyes.  Observation  of  the  effects  of 
hunger  or  of  blows  may  similarly  induce  a  local- 
ized pain.  The  pain  or  the  discomfort  is  appar- 
ently an  immediate  instinct.  The  localization 
in  one's  own  body  is  probably  largely  due  to 
suggestion.  Whatever  the  neurological  connec- 
tion, the  fact  is  obvious  and  verified  every  day. 
The  suffering  is  very  real  and  can  be  escaped 
only  by  relieving  the  suffering  of  the  other  or 
forcing  one's  self  to  forget  it.  The  former  is 
usually  the  easier  method.  This  instinct  is 
probably  the  strongest  incentive  to  charity;  it 
makes  charity  not  an  intellectually  or  morally 
motived  activity  merely,  but  a  necessity  for  the 
individual's  immediate  comfort.  Its  ramifica- 
tions in  the  social  life  are  wide ;  most  unselfish 
cooperation  depends  upon  it.  When  strongly 
aroused  it  passes  over  into  resentment  and  be- 
comes a  strong  factor  in  the  exercise  of  the 
criminal  law. 
The  instincts  of  the  second  class  are  more  ef- 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      31 

fective  in  keeping  discipline  within  the  group. 
They  are  the  instincts  of  fear  or  of  respect  for 
the  group  as  a  whole  or  for  its  members.  These 
vary  from  the  paralyzing  effect  of  youthful 
bashfulness,  through  stage  fright,  to  respect  for 
the  opinions  and  feelings  of  others  just  because 
they  are  expressed  or  exhibited  by  others.  In 
its  strongest  manifestations  bashfulness  sug- 
gests a  pathological  fear.  It  is  most  intense 
in  childhood  and  weakens  later  to  increase  in 
adolescence.  Even  in  the  adult,  only  long  prac- 
tice will  enable  a  man  to  appear  before  a  large 
audience  with  complete  composure,  and  the 
most  experienced  are  subject  to  embarrassment 
when  put  in  a  new  position  or  before  a  strange 
audience.  It  appears  when  reason  gives  every 
assurance  that  there  is  no  danger.  In  the  crowd 
this  fear  enables  the  group  to  establish  its  dic- 
tates against  the  better  judgment  of  the  indi- 
vidual. He  does  what  others  do  because  he  is 
uncomfortable  when  he  does  not,  he  is  in  many 
cases  actually  afraid  to  assert  his  opinions 
against  the  crowd.  The  fear  may  be  overcome 
by  a  strong  man  who  is  confident  that  he  is 
right,  but  the  weak  man  does  not  assert  himself 
and  the  strong  man  yields  on  points  that  seem 
to  him  relatively  non-essential  rather  than  un- 
dergo the  discomfort  of  self -assertion.  This  in 
the  crowd  assures  cooperation  and  is  one  of  the 


32      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

factors  that  make  the  crowd  approach  a 
unity.  It  is  a  powerful  agent  in  the  enforce- 
ment of  standards  in  groups  of  individuals  who 
are  in  communication  only  through  the  indirect 
means  of  the  press  and  hearsay.  The  individual 
tends  to  subordinate  his  opinion  to  the  social 
group 's.  Why  he  acts  as  he  does,  why  he  feels 
uncomfortable  when  face  to  face  with  a  crowd, 
the  individual  does  not  know.  The  instinct  ex- 
presses itself  only  in  the  acts  and  in  the  feel- 
ings ;  it  is  not  revealed  to  consciousness  in  any 
other  way.  The  actor  knows  only  that  he  acts, 
and  that  he  would  be  uncomfortable  if  he  failed 
to  act  as  he  does. 

This  fear  of  the  group,  or  of  society  as  a 
whole  when  at  a  distance,  makes  possible  what  is 
perhaps  the  most  important  concrete  factor  in 
the  development  of  society  and  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  as  a  member  of  society — 
the  development  of  ideals  and  the  enforcement 
of  ideals  upon  the  members  of  a  social  group. 
The  ideals  themselves  we  may  take  for  granted 
as  the  gradual  development  of  a  standard  of  ac- 
tion or  of  thinking  that  has  proved  valuable  for 
the  group.  They  certainly  do  not  arise  from 
rational  considerations.  When  they  do  ap- 
pear, ideals  constitute  the  most  essential  ele- 
ment in  determining  the  life  of  the  individual 
and  of  the  community.  Success  in  attaining 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      33 

these  ideals  gives  most  of  the  pleasant  emotions, 
failure  to  attain  them  many  of  the  most  poig- 
nant sorrows.  In  the  present  state  of  industry 
and  the  use  of  machine  tools  the  absolute  needs 
for  food,  clothing,  and  shelter  might  be  satisfied 
by  working  a  few  hours  a  day.  The  rest  of  the 
time  is  devoted  to  satisfaction  of  what  might 
be  satirized  as  the  "showing  off"  instinct.  No 
one,  of  the  gentler  sex  in  particular,  is  content 
with  comfort  in  clothing;  one  must  have  some- 
thing that  shows  on  the  face  that  it  is  difficult 
to  procure.  As  if  to  make  sure  that  garments 
are  not  carried  over  from  year  to  year,  the 
styles  change  with  frequency,  and  the  most  elab- 
orate gown  that  bears  the  marks  of  an  earlier 
season  must  be  discarded.  The  current  styles 
emphasize  the  statement  that  neither  protection 
nor  comfort  has  much  weight  in  the  minds  of  the 
designer,  or  in  the  thought  of  the  wearer  who 
selects  or  accepts  his  product.  How  little  can 
be  made  of  the  development  of  these  standards 
is  evident  from  the  way  the  styles  develop. 
There  is  no  official  dictator,  but  a  changing 
group  of  designers  who  feel  that  their  success 
depends  upon  their  ability  to  please  the  public. 
The  public  on  the  other  hand  accepts  what  it 
believes  to  be  supplied  to  the  best  people.  Prob- 
ably the  public  and  the  designer  both  are  guided 
to  some  slight  extent  by  instinctive  apprecia- 


tion  of  beauty,  however  little  beauty  there  seems 
to  be  in  many  of  the  styles.  More  depends  upon 
the  prestige  of  earlier  successes,  obtained  in 
ways  and  for  reasons  that  cannot  be  clearly 
determined. 

Less  clearly,  but  none  the  less  unmistakably, 
the  manner  if  not  the  materials  of  eating  is  de- 
termined by  these  social  standards.  One  eats 
in  places  to  be  seen  of  men,  or  if  one  lives  at 
home,  has  accessories  of  the  table  that  shall 
carry  conviction  of  the  social  status  of  the  fam- 
ily. Less  obvious  are  the  manners  that  are  ac- 
quired by  or  forced  upon  the  children  as  a  sign 
of  descent  from  a  superior  stock,  minutiae 
which  have  no  raison  d'etre  aside  from  giving 
the  distinction  of  being  different.  The  size  and 
adornment  of  the  house  is  chosen  rather  to  im- 
press and  serve  as  a  sign  of  power  or  posses- 
sion than  for  the  comfort  of  the  inmates.  Many 
of  the  real  conveniences  are  introduced  because 
they  are  proper  rather  than  because  of  their  ac- 
cepted utility  or  hygienic  value.  All  of  these 
features  of  life  derive  their  vogue  from  the 
fact  that  they  are  approved  by  the  group.  They 
are  a  sign  of  the  material  success  of  their  pos- 
sessor, or  of  his  social  position.  The  pleasure 
that  they  give  is  largely  derived  from  the  effect 
that  they  are  supposed  to  have  upon  others 
rather  than  from  their  inherent  satisfaction. 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      35 

The  owner  does  not  feel  that  he  is  observed  of 
men,  nor  does  he  feel  that  he  is  strutting  with 
the  peacock,  but  take  the  element  of  social  ap- 
proval away  and  he  loses  interest  in  many  of 
his  most  treasured  possessions.  Change  the  na- 
ture of  social  approval  and  the  things  desired 
change  their  character.  One  can  imagine  that 
in  a  national  struggle  for  life  and  death  when 
everything  was  needed  to  save  the  nation  itself, 
abstinence  might  become  enough  of  a  virtue  to 
have  men  rejoice  in  rags  and  plain  living.  In 
the  late  war  we  approached  this  sufficiently  to, 
appreciate  how  much  the  ordinary  scale  exceeds 
the  level  of  minimum  necessity  and  sometimes 
even  of  the  minimum  comfort. 

These  standards  are  set  not  only  for  the 
creature  comforts  and  material  necessities,  but 
for  the  matters  of  the  spirit  as  well.  What 
shall  be  the  accepted  doctrine  in  politics,  in  re- 
ligion, even  in  science  and  philosophy  is  de- 
termined from  generation  to  generation,  even 
from  year  to  year,  by  the  social  whole.  Apart 
from  its  truth  or  philosophy  the  divine  right  of 
kings  had  a  vogue  before  the  French  revolution 
that  has  been  entirely  lost  since  the  downfall  of 
Czar  and  Kaiser.  Belief  in  hell  had  a  long  run 
of  popular  favor  that  seems  to  have  pretty  well 
passed  at  present.  The  dominance  or  passing 
may  be  in  part  explained  by  the  experience  of  a 


36       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

society  of  a  given  age,  and  may  be  a  reasoned 
belief  for  the  select  few,  but  for  the  great  mass 
these  fundamental  beliefs  are  almost  as  much 
matters  of  fashion  as  the  cut  of  a  coat.  It  either 
is  or  is  not  the  thing  at  a  given  time  and  in  a 
given  circle  and  is  accepted  or  rejected  accord- 
ingly. Certain  men,  the  leaders,  can  give  a  rea- 
son, if  not  the  reason,  for  a  particular  belief; 
some  contrary-minded  individuals  are  spurred 
to  skepticism  by  the  prevalence  of  any  doctrine, 
but  the  great  majority  accept  their  beliefs  from 
the  parson,  from  the  latest  book,  or  from  a  fash- 
ionable lecturer  just  as  they  take  their  hats 
from  the  best  milliner.  The  attitude  might  be 
rationalized  by  saying  "if  all  the  best  people 
accept  it,  it  may  be  right,  at  least  it  saves 
thought,  for  after  all  nobody  knows  and  it  is 
as  well  to  be  in  good  company." 

The  readiness  to  accept  these  ideals  and  be- 
liefs from  society  is  probably  one  of  the  most 
important  factors  in  the  development  of  social 
life  in  any  form.  It  holds  not  merely  in  the 
smug,  best  society,  but  even  more  strongly  for 
the  common  people  and  the  dregs.  It  holds  as 
well  for  the  workingman  or  man  who  is  disin- 
clined to  work  who  believes  that  a  socialistic 
state  will  provide  the  utopia,  as  for  the  capital- 
istic believer  in  protection  and  large  armaments 
as  a  specific  for  all  industrial  evils.  The  social- 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      37 

1st  orator  is  as  ready  with  his  "it  is  universally 
agreed"  or  "all  the  best  minds  who  have  exam- 
ined the  social  position  of  the  laborer  assure 
us"  as  is  the  orator  in  Congress.  Each  is  as 
ready  to  rest  upon  the  authority  of  a  generally 
recognized  man,  and  much  of  the  general  recog- 
nition accorded  to  certain  men  arises  because 
their  opinions  suit  the  many  who  give  them 
great  praise,  because  they  desire  to  believe  their 
statements.  In  the  last  analysis  many  such 
statements  mean  merely  that  it  is  good  form  in 
my  set  to  accept  this  opinion.  Seldom  does  any 
one  either  in  the  high  or  in  the  low  levels  of  so- 
ciety attempt  to  go  farther  when  talking  for 
public  effect.  When  the  honest  independent 
thinker  does  reach  conclusions  at  variance  with 
orthodox  or  accepted  opinion,  no  matter  how 
thorough  his  investigation,  it  is  very  difficult 
to  have  them  considered,  and  it  is  almost  im- 
possible to  convince  the  masses  even  when  the 
evidence  in  their  favor  is  the  best  possible. 

These  ideals  depend  for  their  existence  upon 
two  factors:  (1)  the  existence  in  the  individual 
of  an  instinctive  respect  for  the  opinion  of  the 
whole  akin  to  the  fear  of  the  group,  and  (2) 
upon  a  traditional  growth  of  a  conventional 
standard.  To  accept  the  opinion  or  the  stand- 
ard of  the  group  is  instinctive,  but  the  opinion 
or  standard  itself  is  not  immediately  instinc- 


38       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

tive ;  it  is  the  product  of  experience,  of  separate 
instincts  and  of  the  tradition  in  the  society. 
If  one  consider  the  ideals  of  success  of  the  con- 
temporary American,  one  finds  that  what  he 
strives  for  are  things  that  appeal  to  the  primal 
instincts,  and  are  on  their  material  side  desired 
instinctively  by  all  men.  The  degree  and  form 
in  which  they  are  desired  are  determined  pri- 
marily by  the  conventional  standards  of  each 
community.  Wealth  in  any  of  its  forms  is  in 
some  degree  instinctively  desirable.  The  horses 
of  the  steppes  or  the  buffaloes  of  the  Todas 
satisfy  the  instinctive  demands  by  providing 
food  and  clothing  in  addition  to  being  beasts 
of  burden.  When  the  wealthy  chief  obtains 
more  than  he  can  use  they  are  of  prime  value  as 
a  medium  of  exchange,  may,  as  with  the  buf- 
'faloes  of  the  Todas,  become  connected  with  the 
religious  worship,  and  in  any  case  obtain  their 
main  worth  as  a  sign  of  the  success  and  con- 
sequent importance  of  the  possessor.  Probably 
gold  and  silver  and  precious  stones  developed 
their  place  in  the  scale  of  values  in  the  same 
way.  Satisfying  first  the  instinctive  aesthetic 
desires,  their  rarity  gave  them  an  established 
status  as  a  medium  of  exchange.  They  were 
first  an  immediate  means  to  the  satisfaction  of 
all  needs  and,  secondly,  a  symbol  of  power, 
They  then  became  conventionalized  as  a  meas- 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      39 

lire  of  the  degree  of  social  approval  and  hence 
the  end  of  all  attainment.  When  thus  estab- 
lished they  are  the  accepted  ideal  of  the  par- 
ticular group.  One  never  questions  why  one 
should  strive  to  attain  them.  They  seem  to  be 
an  end  in  themselves. 

The  standardized  ideals  of  other  kinds  fol- 
low the  same  course.  All  men  are  curious. 
From  this  develops  love  of  knowledge,  from 
that,  in  turn,  respect  for  knowledge.  From  this 
series  of  instincts  is  derived  the  social  respect, 
so  far  as  it  exists,  which  attaches  to  the  schol- 
ar's career.  In  a  measure,  the  appreciation  sets 
up  rewards  and  standards  of  attainment  in  po- 
sitions in  connection  with  learned  institutions, 
memberships  in  academies  abroad  and  what 
not,  that  in  a  measure  atone  for  the  small  finan- 
cial returns.  That  financial  rewards  are  of  the 
same  order  as  social  approval  is  seen  in  the 
lower  levels  where  the  girl  of  superior  intelli- 
gence will  take  the  smaller  wage  of  the  depart- 
ment store  rather  than  the  higher  of  the  factory, 
and  either  rather  than  better  paid  household 
service.  The  ideal  for  attainment  in  these  cases 
consists  in  the  name  of  the  profession.  So- 
ciety gives  greater  esteem  to  the  lawyer  than 
to  the  locomotive  engineer  of  the  same  earn- 
ing power,  to  the  physician  than  to  the  veteri- 
narian, to  the  clergyman  than  to  the  riveter. 


40       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

These  are  in  part  symbolized  in  the  dress.  Any 
calling  that  permits  wearing  a  white  collar  and 
having  moderately  clean  hands  seems  to  stand 
higher  than  one  which  is  too  dirty  or  too  rough 
for  the  better  clothing.  This  may  be  due  partly 
to  the  pleasure  in  the  dress,  and  partly  to  the 
fact  that  the  dress  is  merely  an  indication  of  the 
respect  in  which  the  calling  is  held  and  of  the 
type  of  man  who  seeks  to  enter  it.  Certain  it  is 
that  these  ''white  collar"  callings  have  a  more 
general  esteem;  men  are  willing  to  submit  to 
longer  training  in  preparation  for  them  and  to 
receive  smaller  rewards  in  them  than  in  others 
of  less  difficulty  and  in  themselves  no  more  dis- 
agreeable. Success  in  none  of  them  is  meas- 
ured by  the  financial  rewards  and  in  some  meas- 
ure they  compete  with  business  on  this  basis.  In 
some  of  them,  the  attainment  is  measured 
rather  by  the  standing  in  the  profession  itself, 
by  the  number  and  value  of  the  books  written, 
by  the  pictures  hung  and  the  prizes  received 
rather  than  by  the  financial  reward.  There  is 
in  artistic  circles  a  tendency  even  to  look  upon 
financial  rewards  as  vulgar  even  though  they 
are  never  spurned.  The  reward  is  convention- 
alized, but  it  is  a  different,  perhaps  a  contradic- 
tory, ideal  from  the  ordinary  monetary  reward. 
When  we  turn  from  these  standards  of  ap- 
preciation to  the  ideals  of  conduct  we  find  that 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      41 

in  general  outline  the  process  is  the  same.  In 
morals  the  standards  have  been  formulated  so 
definitely  that  they  may  be  reduced  to  codes,  al- 
though frequently  the  actual  legal  codes  are  not 
identical  with  the  standards  approved  by  so- 
ciety. The  incentives  to  live  up  to  the  ideals 
are  approximately  the  same  as  for  the  attain- 
ment of  success,  except  that  more  emphasis  is 
put  upon  the  punishment  for  failure  than  upon 
reward  for  success.  The  acts  interdicted  are 
those  that  would  be  harmful  to  the  social  whole, 
and  most  would,  if  permitted,  render  the  group 
less  likely  to  survive.  As  in  the  preceding  in- 
stances the  standards  or  ideals  are  firmly  es- 
tablished, although  it  is  easier  to  say  when  they 
have  been  departed  from  than  exactly  what  they 
are.  The  moral  as  distinguished  from  the  re- 
ligious among  the  ten  commandments  are  speci- 
fic, but  they  are  given  latitude  in  interpreta- 
tion. The  less  fundamental  features  of  moral 
behavior  are  quite  as  rigidly  enforced,  although 
not  so  clearly  formulated.  All  may  be  said  to  be 
instinctive  in  their  fundamental  character, 
given  a  particular  form  or  content  by  conven- 
tion and  tradition,  and  then  enforced  by  the  in- 
stinctive fear  of  the  dictates  of  the  social  group. 
Ideals  for  the  vaguer  relations  of  states  illus- 
trate the  same  laws.  One  may  say  that  all  mod- 
ern states  have  an  ideal  of  freedom  for  the  in- 


42       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

dividual.  This  ideal  is  somewhat  peculiar  in 
that  it  is  in  large  part  a  reaction  against  the 
older  social  conventions,  but  has  become  estab- 
lished in  its  turn  through  social  approval.  The 
content  varies  from  nation  to  nation  in  the 
shade  of  meaning  that  is  given  it,  and  even  from 
one  social  group  to  another.  For  the  allied 
group  of  nations  the  term  means  in  general 
freedom  from  interference  by  the  government, 
and  in  less  degree  by  social  opinion,  with  the 
details  of  the  thought  and  action  of  the  indi- 
vidual. Even  in  the  different  members  of  the 
alliance  the  meaning  varies  from  nation  to  na- 
tion. In  England  freedom  of  speech  in  political 
matters  is  much  more  prominent  than  in  any  of 
the  others.  In  the  United  States  we  empha- 
size more  right  to  vote  and  perhaps  the  abstract 
notion  of  freedom  with  little  practical  applica- 
tion to  personal  freedom  in  conduct  or  in  speech 
that  affects  matters  of  established  government 
or  general  political  belief.  In  France  personal 
freedom  is  much  more  in  evidence.  The  Puri- 
tanical restraints  of  both  England  and  the 
United  States  would  be  irksome  to  the  French- 
man. There  is  probably,  too,  less  or  at  least  a 
different  subordination  of  the  individual  to  the 
state  where  personal  pleasure  and  state  inter- 
ests come  into  conflict.  In  all  three  countries 
the  interpretation  of  the  ideals  varies  from  time 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      43 

to  time,  under  the  stress  of  circumstances.  Dur- 
ing the  war  many  of  the  most  cherished  features 
of  the  American  constitution  have  been  put 
aside  by  popular  consent  because  they  stood  in 
the  way  of  winning,  and  even  the  highest  courts 
have  found  a  way  to  justify  their  temporary  ab- 
rogation. In  all  of  these  countries  liberty  is  re- 
stricted in  its  application  by  the  accepted  needs, 
by  the  conventionally  accepted  greatest  good  of 
the  greatest  number.  In  all  of  these  countries 
rights  are  tempered  by  duties.  In  the  Russia 
of  the  Bolshevists  alone  is  there  complete  free- 
dom, with  no  restriction  by  convention.  The 
result  is  license  and,  to  the  distant  observer,  a 
condition  that  resembles  the  earlier  autocracies, 
with  the  complete  dominance  of  the  physically 
powerful. 

The  ideal  of  personal  liberty  is  very  different 
from  the  national  ideal  in  either  of  the  Central 
Powers.  There  the  doctrines  of  a  century  have 
succeeded  in  reducing  the  freedom  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  the  exaltation  of  the  State.  The  State 
is  accepted  as  a  real  person  with  the  rights  and 
joys  of  a  person  and  the  educated  German  at 
least  has  accepted  it,  has  become  content  to 
share  the  glory  of  its  greatness  as  a  substitute 
for  his  own  more  personal  emotions.  The  less 
intelligent  are  bribed  by  good  wages  and  living 
conditions  to  accept  an  existence  with  a  mini- 


44       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

mum  of  personal  freedom,  aside  from  the  free- 
dom to  gratify  his  more  fundamental  instincts 
in  his  own  way.  How  far  this  condition  will  sur- 
vive the  wreck  of  the  war  is  still  to  be  seen. 
What  strikes  one  most  forcibly  in  the  rapid 
changes  of  the  war  period  is  the  quickness  with 
which  one  ideal  may  supplant  another  and  the 
completeness  with  which  the  material  conditions 
change  with  change  in  the  ideals.  Eussia  is 
made  over  or  destroyed,  as  one  will,  by  the  gen- 
eral acceptance  of  an  ideal  held  before  the  re- 
volt by  a  small  but  noisy  minority.  France  is 
reborn  with  the  vivifying  of  an  ideal  that  many 
had  assumed  before  the  war  to  be  accepted  only 
as  a  form.  Whether  the  well  disciplined  and 
conservative  German  has  a  latent  ideal  that 
shall  transform  Germany  in  the  same  way  is 
still  to  be  seen. 

These  ideals  constantly  cross  the  racial  and 
the  individual  instincts  and  may  easily  be  con- 
fused with  them.  One  frequently  speaks  of  an 
instinct  of  cleanliness,  but  study  of  different 
races  and  the  evolution  of  the  small  boy  show 
that  much  of  the  dislike  of  cleanliness  depends 
upon  social  ideals.  Imitation  has  been  fre- 
quently spoken  of  as  an  instinct,  but  it  is  prob- 
ably only  one  form  of  the  socially  enforced  ac- 
quiescence in  the  standards  of  the  community. 
The  forms  of  the  constructive  instinct,  of  the 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      45 

acquisitive  instinct,  of  the  instinct  of  curiosity, 
if  not  the  acts  that  are  ascribed  to  the  instincts, 
are  frequently  derived  from  the  social  stand- 
ards or  ideals.  As  opposed  to  the  immediate  in- 
stincts, these  ideals  obtain  only  their  general 
content  and  the  incentives  and  warrant  from 
instinct.  Their  content  comes  from  learning. 
As  compared  with  the  individual  instincts,  too, 
they  reveal  themselves  by  feelings  rather  than 
by  acts.  One  is  guided  in  the  decisions  by  the 
emotions  that  attach  to  the  contemplated  act,  or 
by  the  empirically  known  results  of  the  act  rath- 
er than  by  the  immediate  compulsion  of  the  acts 
themselves.  In  effect  they  are  no  less  strong 
than  the  immediate  instinct,  as  is  evident  from 
the  result  when  they  come  into  conflict  with  the 
individual  and  racial  instincts.  Many  a  sensible 
woman  will  give  up  food  or  comfort  for  a  gown 
that  will  win  social  approval,  and  many  an  am- 
bitious youth  sacrifices  health  that  he  may  suc- 
ceed in  a  profession.  The  birth-rate  is  low  in 
the  higher  classes,  for  children  are  incompatible 
with  the  best  garments,  with  automobiles  and 
other  material  signs  of  social  standing. 

Of  particular  importance  in  all  discussions  of 
social  psychology,  because  of  the  large  place 
that  has  been  assigned  to  it  by  Tarde,1  Bald- 

1  Tarde :     ' '  Laws  of  Imitation. ' ' 


46       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OP  NATIONALITY 

win2  and  others  is  the  relation  of  imitation 
to  the  instincts.  Tarde  and  others  who  make 
most  of  it  regard  imitation  as  a  simple  instinct, 
and  assume  that  any  act  made  by  one  man  will 
be  imitated  by  others  about,  just  because  this 
act  is  observed.  What  observations  we  have  on 
the  simpler  forms  of  imitation  indicate  that  such 
an  instinct  does  not  exist.  Imitation  seems 
rather  to  be  the  result  of  a  number  of  instincts 
and  to  be  closely  dependent  upon  the  general 
social  instincts  we  have  been  considering.  We 
may  distinguish  at  least  three  different  senses 
in  which  the  term  is  used :  first,  the  imitation  of 
simple  movements  that  have  not  yet  been 
learned ;  second,  of  simple  movements  that  have 
been  learned  and  made  at  other  times  by  the 
individual  who  is  to  imitate ;  third,  complicated 
acts,  purposes,  or  institutions  which  are  adopt-  * 
ed  by  one  people  from  another.  The  experi- 
mental evidence  both  in  animals  and  men  for 
the  influence  of  imitation  of  the  first  sort  is  neg- 
ative. An  unknown  movement  is  learned  no 
more  quickly  when  a  model  is  furnished  by  an- 
other than  when  the  animal  or  child  is  left  alone, 
provided  only  some  incentive  for  the  movement 
is  given.  Cats  get  out  of  boxes  no  more  quickly, 
monkeys  learn  to  pull  bananas  near  them  with  a 
cane  no  sooner  if  they  are  shown  than  if  they 

2 Baldwin:     "Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations." 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      47 

are  left  to  try  by  their  own  efforts.  The  acts  as 
made  by  another  may  provide  an  incentive  to 
attempt  to  make  them,  where  that  is  otherwise 
lacking.  Thus  the  child  learns  to  speak,  ap- 
parently, because  the  sound  he  hears  sets  a 
model  that  he  tries  to  repeat.  When  that  sound 
comes  by  chance  from  his  own  vocal  organs 
he  is  interested  in  it  and  will  repeat  it.  Even 
this  is  not  a  separate  instinct  but  is  only  one 
expression  of  the  instinctive  interest  in  others 
of  his  own  species  which  impels  him  to  notice 
the  sounds  they  make. 

The  movements  which  have  been  learned  al- 
ready will,  of  course,  be  repeated  when  another 
is  observed  to  make  them.  This  has  fundamen- 
tally the  same  explanation.  The  general  social 
instinct  leads  the  actor  to  observe  the  movement 
of  other  men,  and,  when  that  movement  is  seen, 
the  sensation  evokes  the  movement  by  what  we 
know  as  idea-motor  action.  It  should  be  ob- 
served, too,  that  the  movement  will  not  be  made 
unless  the  results  appeal  to  the  individual  as  de- 
sirable. Whether  they  shall  or  shall  not  be  de- 
sirable is  also  dependent  upon  instinct  and  ex- 
perience, with  social  convention  as  an  element 
in  deciding.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  third 
more  complicated  form  of  imitation — the  adop- 
tion of  styles,  of  ways  of  thinking,  and  of  social 
or  legal  institutions.  Seeing  them  or  knowing 


of  their  existence  may  suggest  the  adoption,  but 
whether  they  shall  be  finally  adopted  depends 
upon  who  exhibits  them,  the  emotional  reaction 
that  they  arouse,  and  their  success  in  practice. 
In  short,  imitation  in  none  of  these  forms  is  an 
instinct,  but  like  all  other  acts  it  is  in  part  de- 
pendent upon  instincts.  At  the  most  it  is  the 
expression  not  of  one  instinct  alone  but  of  many 
divergent  ones.  Most  of  the  social  instincts, 
particularly  social  pressure,  combine  to  induce 
imitation  in  each  of  the  senses  in  which  the  term 
had  been  used.  We  shall  have  several  occasions 
to  discuss  the  third  form. 

The  development  of  social  instincts  is  ex- 
plained by  the  same  principles  as  the  develop- 
ment of  any  instinct.  The  higher  animals  sur- 
vive as  groups,  packs,  or  herds,  rather  than  as 
individuals.  The  beasts  of  prey  are  more  effec- 
tive in  the  pack  than  alone,  the  herd  of  deer  or 
of  cattle  is  more  likely  to  survive  than  separate 
individuals  of  the  same  species.  Assume  two 
species  of  wolf  in  the  same  region,  one  with  the 
instinct  of  hunting  in  the  pack,  the  other  with- 
out it.  The  former  would  survive  in  greater 
numbers  and  the  others  would  in  time  be  elim- 
inated. Where  game  is  scarce  or  large  animals 
predominate,  the  survival  of  those  that  hunt  in 
the  pack  would  be  more  pronounced,  the  elim- 
ination of  the  others  more  rapid.  Similarly, 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      49 

where  predatory  animals  abound  the  non-social 
Herbivora  would  quickly  be  eliminated. 

The  specific  forms  of  the  social  instincts  are 
also  to  be  related  to  survival  value.  The  ten- 
dency to  self-sacrifice  would  subserve  the  inter- 
ests of  the  species  since  if  the  males  alone  are 
killed  there  are  always  enough  to  preserve  the 
fertility  of  the  group.  Were  the  herd  to  scatter 
on  attack,  more  individuals  would  perish  and 
they  would  be  the  young  and  the  females  upon 
whom  survival  mainly  depends.  The  instinct  of 
the  deer  to  gather  in  a  circle  with  the  males  on 
the  outside,  then,  favors  survival.  The  social 
instincts,  like  the  individual  and  the  racial,  can 
be  regarded  as  tendencies  or  dispositions  that 
have  developed  by  chance  and  which  persist  be- 
cause the  individuals  in  whom  they  have  devel- 
oped survive  while  those  who  fail  to  develop 
them  are  eliminated  or  survive  in  smaller  num- 
bers. The  fear  of  the  group  would  tend  to  make 
for  discipline.  In  man,  at  least,  one  can  trace 
the  effects  clearly,  and  possibly  in  the  higher 
animals  one  may  imagine  an  instinctive  fear  of 
the  group  that  would  force  the  male  to  the  out- 
side of  the  herd,  as  it  shames  a  coward  to  the 
attack.  The  more  tender  emotions  of  sympathy 
seem  little  if  at  all  in  evidence  among  the  ani- 
mals, although  they  appear  in  the  lowest  men. 

In  man  the  social  instincts  are  more  impor- 


50      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

tant  than  in  any  of  the  animals.  Man  is  less 
fitted  to  survive  alone,  more  dependent  upon  the 
care  of  parents  at  birth,  and  he  alone,  apparent- 
ly, is  aided  by  knowledge  and  the  possession 
and  use  of  instruments  that  can  be  developed 
only  gradually  through  the  course  of  genera- 
tions rather  than  found  ready  to  hand.  It  can 
be  seen  at  once  that  no  great  numbers  of  men 
could  survive  did  they  not  gather  into  groups 
and  cooperate  for  defense  against  the  more 
powerful  beasts  and  in  the  pursuit  of  the  ani- 
mals which  provide  them  with  food.  The  ques- 
tion has  been  raised  by  MacDougall  whether  we 
need  to  assume  more  than  the  maternal  instinct 
to  explain  the  social  phenomena  of  sympathy. 
He  asserts  that  when  the  family  instinct  is  ex- 
tended, as  it  is  bound  to  be,  the  social  instincts 
are  certain  to  arise.  If  we  accepted  the  develop- 
ment of  society  from  the  family  the  extension  of 
the  maternal  and  paternal  instincts  would  nat- 
urally follow,  weakening  as  we  find  them  to  do, 
with  remoteness  of  relationship.  We  have  seen 
reason  to  doubt  whether  the  nation  developed 
quite  in  this  way,  whether,  at  least,  the  feeling 
of  kinship  was  not  extended  so  far  before  the 
nation  developed  as  practically  to  cease  to  exist. 
We  have  also  reasons  to  believe  that  loyalty  to 
the  social  whole  contains  some  elements  that 
are  different  in  kind  from  family  affection. 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      51 

They  certainly  are  more  readily  developed  and 
transferred,  and  have  no  relation  to  the  near- 
ness in  blood.  Graham  Wallas  3  is  probably 
right  in  insisting  that  the  social  instincts  are 
distinct  from  the  maternal  and  paternal.  Even 
if  they  are  not  distinct  in  origin  they  are  dis- 
tinct in  application  which  is  all  that  we  need  to 
contend  for  our  present  purposes. 

All  the  social  instincts  must  have  been  effec- 
tive in  developing  the  primitive  communities  at 
a  time  when  the  formation  of  groups  of  indi- 
viduals was  necessary  and  not  optional.  One 
may  assume  on  the  one  hand  that  individuals 
who  spoke  the  same  language  or  were  of  the 
same  general  physical  structure  and  had  com- 
mon interests  might  be  drawn  together  from 
mere  gregariousness.  They  instinctively  liked 
to  be  near  others  of  the  same  kind.  The  ex- 
change of  ideas,  if  we  assume  them  to  have 
reached  the  stage  of  being  able  to  speak  and  of 
having  ideas,  might  of  itself  be  sufficiently 
pleasant  to  bring  them  together.  However  dis- 
agreeable man  in  the  mass  may  be  when  one  is 
in  the  midst  of  the  mass,  there  is  a  hunger  for 
society  that  approaches  the  strength  of  a  phys- 
ical appetite  when  one  has  long  been  alone. 
The  avidity  with  which  the  sheep  herder  on  the 
mountain  range  hangs  on  the  words  of  the  pass- 

3 Graham  Wallas:     "The  Great  Society,"  pp.  146  ff. 


52      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

ing  stranger,  even  if  he  can  with  difficulty  or  not 
at  all  understand  the  language,  seems  due  to 
this  gregariousness  alone. 

More  utilitarian,  even  if  no  more  pressing, 
is  the  mutual  aid  from  cooperation.  •  Even  at 
the  stage  of  the  huntsman  with  no  fixed  habita- 
tion, many  tasks  are  possible  for  the  group  that 
are  impossible  for  any  individual  of  the  group 
alone.  Large  game  falls  more  readily  to  the 
group  than  to  the  individual,  requires  more  than 
one  for  its  preparation  and  transportation,  and 
will  supply  a  small  group  for  as  long  a  time 
as  it  will  remain  edible.  As  the  development 
proceeds  the  advantages  of  working  together 
become  more  pronounced,  and  the  stages  above 
the  simplest  agricultural  would  be  impossible 
without  it.  Where  division  of  labor  becomes 
the  rule,  as  in  all  complicated  societies,  the  ad- 
vantages are  obvious.  In  fact,  the  modern  state 
could  not  be  approximated  did  it  not  exist. 
"Whether  the  results  for  the  individuals  with  the 
rougher,  harder  tasks  are  such  as  would  be 
willed  in  cold  blood  by  those  members  of  society 
were  they  free  to  choose  and  saw  all  the  re- 
sults of  the  choice,  as  compared  with  the  sim- 
pler, less  organized  primitive  existence,  is  a 
question  that  we  have  no  means  of  answering. 
Certainly  those  who  live  under  the  more  primi- 
tive conditions  on  farms  and  in  simply  organ- 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      53 

ized  villages  are  moving  to  the  great  cities 
in  ever-increasing  numbers  and  few  return. 
Whether  the  total  result  for  the  individual  be  a 
gain  or  a  loss,  the  average  individual  is  bound 
to  desire  cooperation  and  the  social  group  de- 
velops from  the  advantages  that  lead  men  to 
draw  together. 

In  the  original  state  the  desire  for  protection, 
the  desire  to  escape  the  greater  at  the  expense 
of  the  lesser  evil,  is  also  strong.  As  soon  as 
tribes  come  into  conflict,  as  soon  as  the  range 
is  restricted  or  game  is  scarce  in  a  given  re- 
gion, men  must  voluntarily  draw  boundaries 
for  the  country  over  which  each  tribe  or  each 
family  may  hunt.  Granted  that  hostilities  re- 
sult, the  tribe  must  draw  together  for  protec- 
tion or  to  wreak  vengeance  upon  the  other 
group.  At  this  stage  the  impulses  of  the  gentle 
cohesive  type  are  replaced  by  the  aggressive 
class.  The  common  affection  is  replaced  in  em- 
phasis by  the  common  hate  of  the  outsider  that 
would  eat  the  grass  from  his  range,  or  would 
kill  and  drive  away  the  deer  that  have  fed  in 
the  valley  and  on  the  mountain  where  he  has 
hunted.  This  common  hate  or  common  anger 
obviously  implies  increased  unity  in  plans  for 
the  destruction  of  the  intruder.  The  small  com- 
munity appreciates  the  advantages  of  the  com- 
mon action  as  it  may  never  have  done  before. 


54      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

The  slight  bitterness  over  the  brother  or  neigh- 
bor who  has  offended  in  some  of  his  own  hunt- 
ing expeditions,  who  has  finished  the  deer  that 
the  individual  in  question  wounded,  is  forgotten 
in  the  greater  dislike  of  the  common  enemy. 
The  tribe  becomes  united  in  spirit  as  it  never 
has  been  since  the  occasion  of  the  last  common 
struggle.  Very  much  of  the  primitive  union  of 
tribes  would  be  traced  to  this  and  similar  com- 
mon offensive  reactions,  the  community  of 
spirit  of  the  pack  rather  than  of  the  defensive 
reactions  of  the  herd  of  deer  or  the  mere  gre- 
gariousness  of  the  oxen.  All  three  need  to  be 
considered  if  we  are  to  know  why  men  gather 
into  communities  or  feel  together  as  nations. 
To  assign  the  relative  importance  of  each  may 
offer  difficulties,  but  it  is  a  problem  that  we 
may  keep  in  mind  as  we  go  on. 

The  development  of  social  ideals  is  a  different 
problem.  In  some  cases  they,  too,  may  have  de- 
veloped by  chance  and  been  selected  by  the  sur- 
vival of  the  nations  in  which  suitable  ones  had 
developed.  The  respect  for  ancestors  and  the 
consequent  ideal  of  many  progeny  to  worship 
those  now  living  when  they  become  ancestors, 
which  has  developed  in  China,  certainly  has 
been  a  factor  in  the  survival  or  great  increase 
in  population ;  while  the  ideal  of  thrift  and  con- 
sequent race  suicide  threatens  to  depopulate 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      55 

France.  In  other  cases,  however,  selection  of 
the  ideal  seems  to  be  due  to  the  pleasing  result 
of  action  in  accordance  with  the  ideals,  or  the 
instinctive  respect  for  the  ideal  itself.  The  uni- 
versally extended  ideal  of  freedom  has  little  sur- 
vival value,  but  does  contribute  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  life  in  the  society  that  accepts  it.  The 
ideal  of  accumulating  goods  against  a  time  of 
misfortune  makes  both  for  greater  comfort  and, 
originally,  was  a  factor  in  survival.  The  greater 
comfort  alone  is  sufficient  reason  for  its  devel- 
opment and  persistence.  The  failure  of  some 
codes  of  morals  that  depart  from  tradition  and 
convention,  such  as  the  failure  of  the  numerous 
free  love  communities,  seems  to  be  due  rather  to 
the  emotional  reaction  to  the  results  of  the  prac- 
tice when  tried  than  to  the  elimination  of  the 
communities  that  have  tried  it.  The  practice 
is  abandoned  before  time  is  given  for  a  test  of 
its  survival  value.  The  emotions  evoked  are 
themselves  instinctive,  so  that  one  might  say 
that  ideals  arise  in  part  from  instinct,  that  the 
acts  which  initiate  them  are  instinctive  and  that 
in  part  the  emotional  reaction  which  determines 
whether  they  shall  be  accepted  or  rejected  in 
advance  of  trial  is  instinctive. 

How  the  standard  actions  or  the  actions  which 
become  standard  and  the  theories  or  beliefs 
which  become  ideals  should  develop  at  first 


56      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

is  a  different  and  more  difficult  question.  Some 
we  may  explain  as  we  have  the  origin  of  in- 
stincts, as  due  to  chance.  Movements  are  con- 
stantly being  made,  some  of  which  are  success- 
ful, and  these  develop  into  habits.  Of  these  the 
better  are  adopted  and  taught  to  the  next  gen- 
eration. In  the  course  of  time  many  acts  be- 
come standardized  that  are  of  no  great  superi- 
ority to  others  that  are  rejected.  Here  belong 
table  manners,  methods  of  pronunciation,  and 
many  others  that  will  occur  to  the  reader.  They 
are  passed  on  as  signs  of  class  or  caste  and  have 
value  as  one  element  in  a  complex  rather  than 
for  themselves.  Beliefs  and  ideals,  too,  seem  to 
originate  at  times  in  much  the  same  way.  New 
theories  are  constantly  occurring  to  individuals 
in  society.  These  are  propounded  to  the  group, 
are  tested  by  their  instinctive  appeal  and  by 
their  harmony  with  experience.  Some  seem 
promising  and  are  tried  in  practice  and  those 
which  prove  useful  or  give  pleasant  results  are 
accepted.  After  they  have  been  accepted  for  a 
time,  they  acquire  a  prestige  that  makes  them 
difficult  to  overthrow;  man  no  longer  questions 
them.  Even  when  circumstances  change  in  a 
way  to  make  the  old  ideal  no  longer  valuable,  it 
still  persists.  It  is  this  that  makes  tradition 
an  incubus  on  progress  at  the  same  time  that  it 
gives  a  conservatism  to  society  which  provides 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      57 

a  necessary  stability.  After  ideals  have  once 
been  established  they  may  be  propagated  by  the 
conquest  of  other  peoples  by  the  race  in  which 
they  have  developed,  as  Greece  and  Rome  im- 
posed their  civilization  upon  the  world.  On  the 
contrary,  ideals  may,  by  their  own  inherent 
strength,  survive  a  conquest,  as  Rome  imposed 
her  language,  laws  and  religion  upon  her  con- 
querors, and  China  is  said  always  to  have  ab- 
sorbed her  conquerors  without  herself  chang- 
ing. At  other  times  ideals  spread  as  sugges- 
tions to  other  peoples  through  their  own  worth, 
or  because  of  the  general  prestige  of  the  nation 
in  a  particular  respect.  Parisian  styles  conquer 
the  world  now  as  the  political  ideals  of  the 
French  did  before  and  after  the  Revolution.  In 
some  of  these  instances  ideals  are  imposed  and 
physical  conquest  is  the  cause  of  the  accept- 
ance of  the  ideals ;  in  others  the  ideals  are  mere- 
ly suggested  and  win  because  of  the  superiority 
of  their  appeal. 

As  instinctively  developed,  we  may  look  upon 
the  nation  as  an  outgrowth  first  of  the  social 
instinct  which  makes  the  mere  presence  of  other 
individuals  pleasant,  the  fundamental  gregari- 
ousness  that  may  be  regarded  as  bringing  the 
units  together.  Further  cooperation  is  imposed 
by  the  instinct  of  sympathy  which  makes  it 
impossible  to  see  another  suffer  with  comfort  to 


58      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

one's  self.  More  general  in  its  effect  is  the  in- 
stinctive respect  for  the  opinions  of  others, 
which  rises  at  times  to  a  fear  of  man  in  the 
mass  which  enforces  the  ideals  of  all  upon  each 
individual.  More  important  than  either,  but 
definitely  dependent  upon  the  latter  for  its  exist- 
ence, are  the  ideals  which  each  nation  has  de- 
veloped— some  for  all  individuals  in  a  group, 
some  for  separate  classes.  These  are  taken 
from  the  society  in  which  one  lives.  The  child 
accepts  the  ideals  and  standards  of  the  family 
in  which  he  grows  up,  of  the  teachers  in  his 
school  and  of  the  companions  in  his  shop.  To 
a  certain  extent  he  may  pass  upon  the  adequacy 
of  the  standard,  particularly  when  he  changes 
from  one  environment  to  another,  but  for  the 
most  part  he  accepts  them  without  question. 
This  choice  is  made  in  terms  of  the  instinctive 
pleasure  or  appeal  of  one  or  the  other,  or  in 
terms  of  the  probable  benefits  as  judged  from 
earlier  experience.  For  the  most  part  they  are 
accepted  without  thought,  because  of  the  social 
forces,  the  fear  of  society,  and  the  instinctive 
discomfort  which  attaches  to  its  real  or  im- 
agined disapproval.  This  gives  the  ideals  or 
the  standards  of  the  society  in  which  the  indi- 
vidual chances  to  live  the  effect  of  a  primitive 
instinct.  The  individual  thinks  of  the  standard 
not  as  a  social  imposition  but  as  an  ultimate 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      59 

law;  its  dictates  are  the  dictates  of  his  con- 
science, of  the  proprieties  or  of  good  taste.  As 
a  result  of  these  instincts  and  the  acceptance 
of  these  ideals,  the  nation  is  for  each  individual 
in  it  something  more  than  an  abstraction,  he 
identifies  himself  with  it  as  a  part  of  himself, 
he  suffers  pain  when  it  is  diminished,  he  re- 
joices with  it  as  it  thrives,  it  becomes  almost 
as  much  a  center  of  his  emotions  as  is  his  self. 
Assuming  as  we  may  and  must  that  every  in- 
dividual is  born  into  the  world  with  a  full  equip- 
ment of  social  instincts,  we  must  still  recognize 
that  these  instincts  are  relatively  closely  limited 
in  their  application.  It  is  this  limitation  that  is 
at  work  in  the  development  of  a  national  feel- 
ing. One  is  bound  in  virtue  of  the  instinct  to 
act  in  a  certain  way  toward  other  individuals  of 
society.  One  must  feel  sympathy  when  they 
suffer.  One  must  help  them  when  they  are  in 
trouble,  one  subordinates  one's  self  to  their  de- 
mands and  accepts  their  ideals  without  question, 
or  with  relatively  little  question.  One  may  be 
willing  to  die  to  win  the  approval  of  the  group 
or  to  prevent  it  from  being  destroyed  or  from 
being  subjected  to  undue  hardship.  What  is 
most  striking  for  us  in  the  whole  application 
of  the  social  instinct  to  the  formation  of  na- 
tionality is  that  the  instinct  is  strictly  limited 
in  its  expression  to  the  individuals  who  belong 


60       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

to  one  group,  to  the  group  recognized  as  one's 
own.  A  member  outside  of  the  group  receives 
the  benefit  of  these  instinctive  responses  in  con- 
stantly diminishing  amount  as  he  is  farther 
removed  from  the  immediate  circle.  When  out- 
side he  has  no  effect  upon  our  opinion,  his  ideals 
are  ridiculed  rather  than  accepted,  he  has  no 
influence  in  restraining  our  individualistic  re- 
sponses, he  receives  but  a  limited  sympathy, 
and,  at  the  extreme,  we  may  rejoice  at  his 
suffering  and  even  join  with  pleasure  in  in- 
flicting pain  upon  him. 

It  is  the  fact  of  the  formation  of  these  limited 
groups  within  which  the  social  instincts  may  be 
applied  that  is  at  the  basis  of  the  whole  prob- 
lem of  nationality.  Were  the  instincts  to  be 
limited  to  the  immediate  family  or  were  all  men 
without  distinction  to  be  included  in  their  appli- 
cation we  would  not  have  this  problem.  The 
one  word  instinct  would  answer  all  questions. 
As  it  stands,  our  cooperating  impulses  extend 
beyond  the  immediate  family  and  still  do  not 
involve  the  whole  range  of  humanity.  The  prob- 
lem of  nationality  is  primarily  one  of  determin- 
ing the  limits  of  the  instinct.  One  feels  or  may 
feel  the  social  response  of  friendliness  or  of 
helpfulness  toward  any  individual  of  the  ac- 
cepted group,  but  what  shall  constitute  the 
group  is  settled  rather  by  convention  or  by  cus- 


NATION  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  UNIT      61 

torn  than  by  instinct.  The  problem  would  be 
simple  were  the  group  determined  also  by  in- 
stinct. If  one  were  born  to  love  one  group  and 
to  have  or  to  be  indifferent  to  another  group, 
then  all  that  would  be  needed  to  decide  where  to 
draw  the  national  boundaries  would  be  to  dis- 
cover the  limits  of  application  of  the  in- 
stinct. If  long-headed  individuals  would  with 
pleasure  live  with  all  other  long-headed  indi- 
viduals and  dislike  all  broad-headed  ones,  evi- 
dently one  could,  by  cranial  measurements,  form 
nations  that  would  insure  an  ideal  of  fellow- 
ship. It  might  be  asserted  by  overzealous  ad- 
vocates of  the  importance  of  physical  signs  of 
race  that  the  future  wars  will  be  between  groups 
who  differ  by  a  few  degrees  in  cephalic  index. 
Or  were  the  common  heredity  to  determine  the 
reactions  and  responses,  one  need  but  to  deter- 
mine the  degree  of  kinship  to  divide  and  sub- 
divide the  human  species  into  appropriate 
groups  and  classes.  As  has  been  seen,  the  real 
lines  of  division  do  not  follow  along  the  same 
lines  as  physical  differences,  and  slight  obser- 
vation even  of  one's  own  likes  and  dislikes  show 
that  nearness  in  kin  provides  no  criterion  of 
community  of  spirit. 

As  the  matter  stands,  one  must  admit  that, 
while  man  is  endowed  with  many  social  instincts 
the  range  of  application  of  the  instincts  is  rela- 


62      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

lively  little  determined,  may  in  fact  be  regarded 
as  undetermined.  The  decision  as  to  who  shall 
be  regarded  as  coming  within  and  who  as  stand- 
ing without  the  field  of  its  application  consti- 
tutes the  real  problem  and  this  seems  to  depend 
more  upon  the  conditions  of  the  life  of  the  in- 
dividual, upon  habit  and  training,  than  upon  in- 
stinct. In  practice  this  means  that  one  may 
select  whom  one  will  to  constitute  one's  com- 
munity, or  at  least  that  the  limits  of  one 's  com- 
munity are  not  drawn  by  inheritance  or  by  evo- 
lution. If  one  is  to  solve  the  problems  of  nation- 
ality one  must  study  the  conditions  that  deter- 
mine the  particular  groupings  of  individuals  as 
well  as  the  general  fact  that  all  men  desire 
to  live  together  and  are  forced  to  cooperate 
with  each  other  by  their  inherited  dispositions 
which  not  only  make  another  course  impossible 
but  make  the  only  alternative  pleasant. 


CHAPTER  III 

HATE  AS  A  SOCIAL  FOECE 

WE  have  been  emphasizing  in  the  last  chapter 
the  kindly,  sympathetic  instincts  that  hold  so- 
ciety together,  that  further  cooperation  and 
promote  all  of  the  gentler  virtues.  But  there 
is  another  side.  Society  originated  in  conflict 
and  one  of  the  strong  incentives  to  the  develop- 
ment of  a  primitive  society  was  protection 
against  other  tribes,  and,  on  occasion,  aggres- 
sion against  others.  This  meant  that  instincts 
and  emotions  must  develop  in  the  individual 
which  would  insure  his  taking  part  in  any  con- 
flict that  was  necessary  to  the  survival  of  the 
group  to  which  he  belonged.  These  emotions  are 
not  different  from  those  aroused  by  the  individ- 
uals with  whom  he  comes  in  contact,  but  they  are 
intensified  if  not  extended  by  the  other  mem- 
bers of  the  group.  If  the  instincts  have  devel- 
oped through  their  value  for  survival  it  would 
be  the  instincts  that  were  dominant  during 
periods  of  stress  that  would  appear  and  persist 
through  the  survival  of  the  animals  who  show 
them.  Only  dangers  from  without  need  drive 

63 


64       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

the  herd  together,  only  acts  of  aggression  would 
require  the  pack  to  gather.  The  emotions  and 
instincts  appropriate  to  these  situations  are 
anger  and  hate,  the  anger  that  steels  for  resist- 
ance and  nerves  for  the  attack. 

If  one  took  as  one's  thesis  that  societies  are 
formed  through  opposition  to  outside  forces, 
one  might  find  an  analogy  from  studies  which 
were  made  by  Jennings  of  the  tendencies  of  a 
unicellular  organism  that  he  studied,  the  para- 
mecium,  to  gather  into  groups.  The  paramecium 
lives  in  colonies  which  may  be  transferred  to 
the  slide  and  studied  under  a  microscope.  The 
animal  is  a  single  shuttle-shaped  cell  that  moves 
by  the  strokes  of  a  row  of  ciliae,  small  hair-like 
processes  which  grow  on  two  sides.  At  first 
sight  the  paramecia  seem  to  be  of  a  marked 
social  disposition.  No  matter  how  scattered 
they  may  be  they  soon  all  assemble  in  one  small 
group.  Were  they  men  we  would  incline  to  ex- 
plain this  by  saying  that  they  liked  each  other's 
society  or  that  they  had  a  social  instinct,  at 
least  the  instinct  of  gregariousness.  Careful 
study  of  their  movements  and  of  the  way  they 
gather  indicates  that  the  process  is  very  much 
more  mechanical.  In  the  first  place,  the  only  re- 
action that  they  show  is  a  negative  one.  When 
certain  stimuli  affect  them  they  will  reverse  the 
movements  of  the  cilise  and  move  away  from  it. 


HATE  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  65 

They  make  no  response  whatever  when  the  stim- 
ulus is  what  we  would  call  pleasant.  It  is  this 
same  negative  refaction  that  causes  them  to 
come  together.  They  always  attempt  to  avoid 
an  alkaline  solution,  or  to  avoid  going  from  a 
mildly  acid  medium  to  one  that  is  more  alkaline. 
About  each  small  group  of  cells  there  develops 
a  solution  of  carbon  dioxide,  from  the  respira- 
tion of  the  group.  Whenever  a  member  of  the 
group  swims  to  the  limit  of  this  acid,  it  makes 
a  sudden  reversal  movement  of  the  cilise,  a 
series  of  back-strokes  that  makes  it  return  to 
the  more  acid  medium.  When  one  from  outside 
the  group  chances  to  swim  into  the  acid  me- 
dium, it  is  imprisoned,  for  when  it  approaches 
the  boundary  the  back-stroke  is  induced  and 
again  it  is  forced  to  turn  and  swim  back.  Soon 
all  are  trapped  in  the  small  area  of  acidulated 
water.  In  short,  what  seems  to  be  a  fondness 
for  other's  society  proves  in  the  paramecium 
to  be  merely  a  mechanical  impossibility  of  es- 
caping from  the  water  about  the  group  that  has 
been  made  acid  by  the  excreted  carbonic  acid 
of  the  group.  If  we  generalize  this,  it  would 
mean  that  society  develops  not  from  a  liking 
for  society  but  from  a  dislike  of  the  surround- 
ing medium.  That  which  drives  the  individuals 
together  is  the  dislike  of  the  outside  forces 


'66       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

rather  than  any  fondness  for  the  company  of 
which  they  are  members. 

As  we  turn  to  the  most  developed  stage,  we 
can  find  instances  and  phenomena  in  the  human 
organization  and  forms  of  human  emotion 
which  indicate  that  many  of  our  human  acts, 
some  even  of  those  that  seem  most  worthy,  are 
the  outcome  of  hate  rather  than  of  love  and  the 
more  positive  altruistic  sentiments  to  which 
they  are  sometimes  ascribed.  Were  one  to  take 
a  militaristic  view  of  the  world  it  would  be  pos- 
sible to  argue  that  it  is  hate  of  the  opposition 
that  furnishes  all  of  the  real  incentives  of  life, 
that  if  war  and  hating  were  to  stop,  all  prog- 
ress would  stop  and  we  would  drop  down  to  a 
monotonous  stage  of  little  endeavor.  All  prog- 
ress, on  this  view,  has  been  derived  from  con- 
flict, and  when  conflict  ceases  there  will  be  little 
incentive  to  endeavor.  One  need  not  go  so  far 
as  this  to  see  that  the  emotion  of  hate  and  the 
instincts  of  opposition  are  important,  and  that 
it  is  hard  to  exaggerate  the  part  which  they 
play  in  the  control  of  modern  life,  even  if  one 
should  attempt  to  avoid  special  pleading.  I 
remember  hearing  a  distinguished  scientist,  a 
resident  of  an  eastern  city,  say  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war  in  1914  that  he  had  never  before 
known  the  joys  of  unrestrained  hate,  particu- 
larly of  unrestrained  hate  in  unison  with  others. 


HATE  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  67 

He  added  that  he  thought  he  had  known  some- 
thing of  it  in  his  hatred  for  the  members  of  cer- 
tain old  and  prominent  families  of  his  commun- 
ity for  whom  he  had  great  contempt,  but  that 
that  was  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  grati- 
fication which  came  with  the  joys  of  the  newer 
and  freer  emotion.  This  is  probably  an  avowal 
that  few  would  be  honest  enough  to  make,  if 
true,  and  probably  that  few  feel  in  such  an  in- 
tense degree,  still  it  is  not  so  far  removed  from 
the  general  attitude,  as  the  mildest  of  us  would 
like  to  believe. 

We  can  see  the  effects  in  the  individual  reac- 
tions to  war  and  the  choice  of  sides  or  at  least 
the  distribution  of  sympathies  in  America  when 
the  European  war  broke  out  and  before  we  were 
engaged.  In  many  cases  that  came  under  my 
observation,  the  alignment  was  determined  by 
resentment  against  one  side  or  the  other  rather 
than  by  fondness  for  the  side  favored.  One,  a 
Russian  who  had  been  exiled,  and  who  had  spent 
most  of  his  life  in  America  with  study  in  Ger- 
many for  one  or  two  periods  of  a  year  or  so 
each,  felt  first  a  bitter  hatred  of  Russia  that 
aligned  him  against  the  Allies ;  then,  when  Bel- 
gium was  invaded  and  England  came  in,  his 
hatred  of  the  German  began  and  continued. 
This  grew  stronger  when  we  entered  the  war. 
Another  man,  a  Swiss,  hated  Germany  and 


found  his  sympathies  with  France  and  Russia 
until  England  came  in,  when  his  dislike  for  Eng- 
land, much  stronger  than  for  Germany,  drove 
him  back  to  a  neutral  position;  as  he  put  it 
'then,  he  did  not  care  much  so  long  as  Switzer- 
land could  remain  neutral. 

In  the  attitude  of  the  native  American  to  the 
war,  one  was  struck  by  the  vastly  greater  effect 
of  hate  and  resentment  against  the  cruelty  of 
the  German  than  of  sympathy  with  the  victims. 
If  we  divide  Americans  into  the  two  groups: 
those  who  knew  enough  of  European  politics 
to  follow  the  war  intelligently  and  the  great 
mass  who  heard  of  the  conflict  as  one  might  of 
an  eruption  in  Java  or  in  Mars,  we  can  see  the 
effect  in  the  same  form  but  different  degrees. 
The  first  felt  a  rush  of  horror  at  the  fact  of  war 
at  all  and  then  anger  or  indignation  at  the  in- 
dividuals and  nations  that  started  it,  that 
brought  them  definitely  to  take  sides  for  one  or 
the  other  of  the  contestants.  It  would  be  fair 
to  say  that,  at  the  beginning,  sentiment  in  this 
class  was  fairly  evenly  divided.  Many  of  the 
group  were  familiar  with  both  sides;  some  of 
the  more  highly  educated  had  studied  in  Ger- 
many, others  were  German  by  birth  or  descent 
or  had  come  under  the  influence  of  the  extended 
preaching  of  German  ideals  that  had  been  so 
extensive  in  the  preceding  decade.  There  were 


69 

certainly  as  many  admirers  of  Germany  as  of 
England.  The  affliations  as  determined  by  sym- 
pataies  in  the  preceding  wars  were  either  neu- 
tral or  were  opposed  to  the  Entente.  Opinion 
was  Lostile  to  England  in  the  Boer  war  and  had 
been  on  the  whole  bitter.  There  were  few  Amer- 
icans cf  this  class  who  would  not  have  been  glad 
to  see  the  British  whipped  at  that  time.  This 
was  probably  more  than  enough  to  overcome 
the  effect  produced  by  England's  action  at  Man- 
illa in  the  Spanish  war,  particularly  as  English* 
men  as  a  whole  had  been  inclined  to  side  with 
Spain  during  that  war.  Sentiment  in  America 
had  always  been  hostile  to  Russia  because  of 
her  form  of  government  and  the  tales  of  pun- 
ishment inflicted  on  political  prisoners — an  at- 
titude that  had  been  intensified  by  sympathy 
with  Japan  during  the  Russo-Japanese  war. 
Between  France  and  Germany  they  would  have 
been  neutral,  as  the  outcome  of  the  war  of  1871 
had  generally  been  regarded  as  deserved.  On 
the  whole,  sentiment  was  quite  as  friendly  to- 
wards Germany  as  towards  the  entente  when 
the  war  began  in  1914,  but  it  developed  rapidly 
against  Germany,  really  against  Germany  and 
not  in  favor  of  the  Entente.  This  began  with 
the  note  of  the  Chancellor  von  Bethmann- 
Hollweg,  in  which  he  referred  to  the  Belgian 
treaty  as  a  scrap  of  paper,  grew  with  the  vari- 


70       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

ous  atrocities  in  Belgium  and  reached  a  climax 
with  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania.  If  one  will 
re-read  the  speeches  and  letters  to  the  papers, 
not  to  mention  the  editorials  that  demanded 
that  we  enter  the  war,  one  will  see  that  the 
emphasis  is  always  upon  the  punisliment  of  the 
guilty,  seldom  that  we  should  save  the  afflicted. 
With  the  less  educated  the  process  was  much 
longer,  but  followed  about  the  same  course. 
The  first  effect  was  slight  in  many  parts  of  the 
country.  Sympathy,  if  there  was  any,  was  in 
favor  of  the  Entente,  or  at  least  against  Ger- 
many. Where  German  propaganda  had  been 
active  opinion  was  nearly  evenly  divided ;  where 
only  the  American  newspapers  were  responsi- 
ble for  the  information,  the  Entente  was  fa- 
vored. In  any  case  interest  was  not  so  vitally 
aroused  as  would  seem  necessary  as  one  looks 
back  upon  it.  The  great  mass  was  opposed  to 
intervention,  where  the  question  had  been 
raised  at  all.  It  was  believed  that  it  was  not 
our  quarrel.  Some  even  tried  to  shut  out  all 
knowledge  of  the  war  on  account  of  the  suf- 
fering they  were  caused  in  sympathy.  This 
attitude  was  sufficient,  when  sympathy  for  the 
Allies  increased,  to  induce  many  to  echo  the 
arguments  of  German  propagandists,  rather  as 
an  excuse  for  our  remaining  neutral  than  from 
any  fondness  for  Germany.  Their  neutrality 


HATE  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  71 

was  overcome  by  increasing  knowledge  of  Ger- 
man atrocities.  Her  acts  in  Belgium  were  suffi- 
cient for  some  to  change  toleration  into  hate; 
the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  and  the  attacks  of 
the  submarines  on  American  ships  and  the  cold 
blooded  ferocity  of  the  German  warfare  in  gen- 
eral brought  the  nation  gradually  to  the  culmi- 
nation of  hate,  with  the  feeling  that  war  was 
our  duty. 

In  the  whole  experience,  one  is  struck  by  the 
great  predominance  of  hate  and  anger  over 
sympathy.  The  Belgian  refugees  aroused  sym- 
pathy, of  course,  and  the  great  mass  were  sorry 
for  the  victims  of  the  war  on  all  sides,  but  pun- 
ishment and  vengeance  were  the  active  forces 
in  bringing  us  into  the  war.  The  eye  was  kept 
first  upon  the  harm  that  could  be  done  to  the 
German — the  prevention  of  suffering  was  in- 
cidental. One  may  have  a  fair  monetary  meas- 
ure of  the  two  influences  in  comparing  the  con- 
tributions for  relief  with  the  expenses  for  war. 
We  were  proud  of  the  amounts  that  were  col- 
lected for  Belgian  relief,  for  French  orphans, 
and  for  the  other  victims  of  the  war  in  minor 
states,  but  these,  large  in  the  aggregate, 
amounted  to  less  than  a  dollar  per  person,  and 
were  nothing  compared  with  the  billions  that 
were  readily  spent  in  preparing  for  war,  in 
expressing  hate  rather  than  sympathy.  To  be 


72       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

sure,  expenditures  by  private  individuals  are 
always  more  modest  and  more  reluctantly  made 
than  are  expenditures  by  the  state.  But  even 
this  is  not  sufficient  to  explain  the  entire  dif- 
ference, the  thousand-fold  increase  in  the 
wealth  poured  out  for  war  as  compared  with 
the  few  millions  per  year  that  were  given  for 
relief  of  suffering. 

Many  other  lessons  of  the  war  indicate  the 
dominance  of  hate  and  anger,  or  the  active  un- 
pleasant emotions  or  instincts,  over  fear  and 
the  passive  unpleasant  instincts  or  emotions. 
The  Germans,  as  is  well  known,  advocated  the 
doctrine  of  frightfulness  even  in  the  manual 
that  they  prepared  to  direct  the  acts  of  their 
commanders  in  the  field.  This  is  based  upon 
the  assumption  that  a  people  if  sufficiently 
abused,  if  treated  with  the  greatest  atrocity, 
will  be  cowed  and  give  in  and  sue  for  peace. 
The  psychology  is  that  accepted  by  some  ani- 
mal trainers  towards  an  animal,  that  you  can 
by  pain  and  suffering  break  him  and  prepare 
him  to  do  what  you  will.  All  the  experiences 
of  the  war  showed  that  this  is  a  mistaken  psy- 
chology. Instead  of  causing  fear  such  acts 
always  caused  hatred  and  anger;  instead  of 
breaking  the  temper  of  the  people  they  angered 
and  nerved  them  to  renewed  effort. 

If  we  run  through  the  list  of  illegal  acts,  we 


HATE  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  73 

find  no  single  one  that  really  paid.  The  fright- 
fulness  in  Belgium,  perhaps,  came  nearest  it. 
Kellogg1  asserts  that  the  Germans  boasted 
that  one  man  captured  Charleville  in  France  as 
a  result  of  the  stories  of  the  way  the  Belgians 
had  been  treated.  Even  this  effect  was  but 
local.  While  the  men  in  the  immediate  neigh- 
borhood of  the  advancing  Germans  fled  and 
left  the  cities  deserted,  the  men  out  of  reach 
rallied  to  the  colors.  It  may  have  had  an  ef- 
fect in  reducing  the  number  of  franc-tireurs, 
but  it  increased  very  greatly  the  number  of  sol- 
diers in  uniform,  and  strengthened  the  resist- 
ance of  the  conscripts.  The  Belgians  and  the 
French  of  the  occupied  region  may  have  offered 
less  overt  resistance  at  the  time,  but  the  secret 
resistance  was  increased  ten-fold.  It  might  be 
said  that  this  was  only  annoying  and  had  no 
effect  upon  the  outcome  of  the  war,  while  if  the 
Germans  had  been  compelled  to  keep  an  army 
corps  in  Belgium  it  would  have  cost  them  the 
war,  but  this  seems  a  marked  exaggeration. 
All  of  the  Belgians  left  could  not  have  done 
very  much  by  irregular  warfare,  and  showed 
no  great  inclination  to  such  illegal  acts ;  if  they 
had,  very  few  men  would  have  been  necessary 
to  deal  with  them.  The  exciting  effect  of  the 

'Vernon  Kellogg:     "The  Capture  of  Charleville":  Atlantic 
Monthly,  vol.  122,  p.  289. 


74       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

atrocities  and  the  letters  of  Cardinal  Mercier, 
among  others  concerning  them,  served  to  arouse 
the  Belgians  and  all  others  of  the  Allies  as  they 
would  never  have  been  had  the  Germans  re- 
spected the  laws  of  war  as  generally  recog- 
nized. 

Each  of  the  other  violations  of  the  rules  of 
humanity  had  the  same  effect.  Bombarding 
open  towns  and  air  raids  in  which  non-combat- 
ants were  killed  were  said  to  be  the  greatest 
stimuli  to  recruiting  in  Great  Britain  in  the 
days  before  conscription  was  introduced.  Later 
the  murder  of  Captain  Fryatt  and  the  drown- 
ing of  the  crews  of  the  vessels  sunk  by  the 
U-boats  had  no  effect  in  preventing  the  ordi- 
nary sailor  from  going  to  sea;  they  merely  an- 
gered him  and  spurred  him  to  greater  effort 
in  ramming  or  in  otherwise  attacking  the  U- 
boat.  The  execution  of  Miss  Cavell,  together 
with  the  others  mentioned  above,  had  a  marked 
influence  on  neutral  opinion,  and  these  with  the 
sinking  of  neutral  ships,  probably,  by  bringing 
in  the  United  States,  were  the  final  forces  in 
losing  the  war  for  Germany. 

Certainly  the  war  as  a  whole  constitutes  a 
definite  refutation  of  the  German  doctrine  of 
frightfulness.  The  Germans  entirely  mistook 
the  psychology  of  the  human  race  at  large. 
Frightfulness  arouses  not  fear,  but  hate.  It 


HATE  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  75 

does  not  break  the  will  of  the  victim,  but  merely 
spurs  to  new  effort  to  obtain  vengeance.  If 
the  German  had  been  even  as  humane  in  the  con- 
duct of  the  war  as  the  Turk,  when  not  indulging 
in  religious  prosecution,  the  outcome  might 
have  been  different.  As,  it  is,  she  is  paying  in 
harsh  treaty  terms  for  the  indignation  she 
aroused  as  well  as  making  restoration  in  kind, 
so  far  as  that  is  possible,  for  the  damage  that 
she  actually  inflicted.  Whether  this  will  arouse 
the  Germans  in  turn  or  will  be  accepted  as  just 
retribution  is  still  to  be  seen.  It  is  possible  but 
not  probable  that  the  Germans  were  correct  as 
to  the  effect  of  frightfulness  on  themselves  al- 
though mistaken  as  to  the  rest  of  the  world. 

It  would  not  require  any  overemphasis  of 
the  facts  to  argue  that  even  religious  organiza- 
tions and  religious  creeds  have  been  developed 
more  from  dislike  of  the  opposing  belief,  of  the 
men  who  hold  them,  or  of  their  practices,  re- 
ligious or  personal,  than  from  any  consuming 
belief  in  the  doctrine  that  was  accepted.  The 
history  of  the  various  heresies  and  heterodoxies 
of  the  early  church  is  one  of  quarrels  over  non- 
essentials,  usually  of  quarrels  whose  real  occa- 
sion was  not  the  one  mentioned,  but  some  dis- 
agreement on  personal  points,  or  on  racial  dis- 
likes. The  early  controversies  turned  on  points 
too  slight  to  be  apparent  to  any  but  the  most 


76       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

hair-splitting  mind.  So  trifling  were  the  differ- 
ences that  one  cannot  believe  that  the  disputes 
were  more  than  a  symbol  of  the  real  difficulties, 
probably  rooted  in  class  or  racial  controversy. 
Certainly  the  bonds  that  held  together  the  op- 
posing parties  were  not  the  fondness  for  the 
timeless  or  the  temporal  explanation  of  the  re- 
lation of  father  and  son.  They  can  hardly  have 
been  an  intellectual  repugnance  for  the  oppos- 
ing doctrine ;  rather  must  we  find  them  in  some 
deep-seated  personal  or  class  antagonism  be- 
tween the  individuals  concerned.  We  have  more 
knowledge  of  the  Great  Keformation  of  Luther 
and  his  fellows  and  here  can  trace  the  profound 
hatred  for  the  immoral  life  and  grasping  finan- 
cial system  of  the  older  clergy  on  the  part  of 
the  reformers  and  their  flocks.  The  theological 
issues  of  transubstantiation  and  similar  ques- 
tions were  but  incidental  to  the  personal  and 
financial. 

That  hate  of  the  opposing  groups  rather  than 
affection  for  the  principles  and  love  for  the  per- 
sons of  the  groups  accepted  is  an  important 
element  in  the  development  of  the  religious  sect 
or  community  is  evidenced  by  the  ferocity  with 
which  heretics  were  dealt  with  in  ancient  times, 
persisting  until  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Why  an  innocent  woman  should  be 
burned  for  doubting  that  the  communion  bread 


HATE  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  77 

was  part  of  the  very  body  of  Christ,  or  a  scholar 
for  believing  that  it  was  his  privilege  to  think 
for  himself  in  ways  prescribed  by  the  brain 
and  mind  with  which  he  had  been  created,  can- 
not be  explained  from  affection  either  for  the 
creed  or  for  the  organization.  If  these  forces 
are  the  first  occasion  for  the  combination  they 
are  quickly  replaced  by  the  much  fiercer  emo- 
tion or  instinct,  the  hatred  of  those  without.  Ee- 
ligious  organizations  flourish  just  so  long  as 
there  is  definite  opposition ;  when  the  opponents 
vanish,  the  vigor  of  the  group  lessens  and  may 
disappear.  Even  to-day,  the  active  organiza- 
tions are  those  with  a  personal  devil  who  may 
be  hated,  and  forces  of  evil  that  may  be  given 
definite  embodiment.  The  evangelist  and  the 
Salvation  Army  orator  have  the  widest  appeal 
when  they  preach  against  definite  and  if  possi- 
ble personal  opponents  rather  than  when  they 
preach  the  beauties  of  resignation  and  the  joys 
of  fellowship.  As  religion  has  become  more 
universal,  and  the  differences  in  doctrine  have 
become  fewer,  particularly  since  the  principle 
of  toleration  of  religious  belief  has  been  gen- 
erally accepted,  religious  enthusiasm  has  less- 
ened. A  vigorous  heresy  seems  important  if 
not  essential  to  the  persistence  of  a  strong  faith. 
When  the  devil  was  a  real  person  he  was  an 
important  aid  to  religious  organization.  The 


78      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

impersonal  evil  or  sin,  or  the  universal  evil  in 
our  own  desires,  is  not  a  satisfactory  substi- 
tute. 

Nor  is  this  influence  of  a  common  hate  in 
uniting  individuals  in  large  masses  confined  to 
hates  between  definitely  organized  groups.  In 
the  relations  between  individuals  in  every  day 
social  intercourse  one  may  trace  the  same  feel- 
ing. Dislike  of  the  mass  holds  many  a  small 
clique  together,  and  plays  a  not  unimportant 
part  in  the  development  of  the  universal  sys- 
tem of  social  levels.  Political  parties,  schools 
of  thought  in  science  and  philosophy,  and  even 
in  religion,  are  certainly  guided  by  contempt 
for  the  members  of  the  opposite  party  quite  as 
much  as  nations.  At  times,  to  be  sure,  the  dis- 
like may  start  from  the  thwarting  of  one 's  own 
desires.  The  populist  movement  and  the  free 
trade  movement  soon  ceased  to  be  mere  matters 
of  political  theory  and  became  resentment  for 
injuries  feared  or  actually  suffered  at  the  hands 
of  a  supposed  conspiracy  of  the  rich.  The  an- 
swer of  the  conservative  parties  is  again  not  so 
much  that  the  system  defended  is  good  for  the 
laborer  or  the  farmer,  but  that  the  pauper  labor 
of  Europe  will,  if  not  prevented,  steal  the  mar- 
kets and  force  our  citizens  into  bondage.  In 
the  same  way,  the  favorite  answer  to  the  social- 
ist is  an  appeal  to  the  man  who  has  little  that 


HATE  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  79 

that  little  may  not  be  taken  from  him  by  the 
man  who  has  nothing.  Dislike  for  great  wealth 
is  met  by  preaching  hatred  against  the  multi- 
tude pictured  as  marauders  rather  than  as  men- 
dicants. In  either  case,  appeals  to  self-interest 
are  overshadowed  in  effectiveness  by  appeals  to 
hates. 

In  the  field  of  charity  and  criminology  the 
same  instincts  are  prominent.  A  cynic  might 
well  argue  that  most  charity  develops  from 
hatred  of  somebody  or  of  something.  Many 
bequests  for  charity  or  education  are  made  not 
from  any  particular  love  of  the  institution  bene- 
fited but  from  hatred  of  the  heirs  who  might 
otherwise  obtain  the  money.  What  proportion 
this  is  one  could  learn  only  from  revelations 
of  trustees  and  of  witnesses.  Many  of  the  char- 
ity workers  themselves  start  from  a  desire  to 
help  the  victims  of  poverty  and  misfortune,  but 
end  with  hatred  of  the  system  or  the  individuals 
that  are  responsible  for  the  existence  of  the 
condition.  When  this  hating  or  fighting  atti- 
tude is  aroused,  the  worker  doubles  his  effi- 
ciency. The  whole  relation  of  the  criminal  to 
society  and  of  society  to  the  criminal  revolves 
around  the  emotion  of  hate.  The  criminal  is 
likely  to  be  guilty  of  his  first  offense  under  the 
influence  of  a  sudden  resentment.  Once  he  has 
been  convicted  he  becomes  an  object  of  fear 


80      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

and  distrust  that  leaves  him  no  alternative  but 
to  hate  society,  and  there  are  no  means  of  liveli- 
hood that  are  not  at  its  expense.  He  may  see 
the  error  of  his  ways  and  long  for  the  oppor- 
tunity to  reform,  but  as  long  as  society  is  sus- 
picious and,  as  he  believes,  unfair,  he  cannot 
avoid  hating  nor  the  actions  that  result.  So- 
ciety cannot  escape  the  suspicion  based  on  a 
knowledge  of  the  strength  of  habit  as  long  as 
the  man  is  assigned  to  the  class  of  the  profes- 
sional criminal.  The  exceptional  man  may  rise 
to  the  heights  of  pitying  or  even  of  admiring 
the  man  who  attempts  to  reform,  but  this  seems 
hopeless  for  society  as  a  whole,  while  it  is  ruled 
by  the  theories  accepted  at  present  and  these 
are  rooted  in  the  instinct  of  mankind  to  hate  all 
who  are  likely  to  be  dangerous. 

The  socialist  in  particular  has  developed  to 
the  full  the  principle  that  you  can  arouse  people 
by  appealing  to  hate  and  anger,  where  you  leave 
them  untouched  by  appeals  to  sympathy  or  co- 
operation. The  foreign  language  and  other 
radical  newspapers  are  filled  with  denunciations 
of  capital  and  capitalists  who  have  fattened  on 
the  suffering  of  the  toiler  for  all  the  ages.  The 
call  to  unitary  action  for  the  good  of  the  laborer 
appears  at  times,  but  that  receives  less  space 
than  the  call  to  fight,  the  cry  of  hate.  Even  the 
opposition  to  war  that  they  preach  is  not  an 


HATE  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  81 

altruistic  or  sympathetic  one ;  it  is  not  that  war 
is  a  source  of  suffering  that  disturbs  them,  but 
that  it  is  an  instrument  of  the  capitalistic 
class,  devised  to  keep  the  laborer  in  subjection 
by  killing  some  and  reducing  the  others  by  taxa- 
tion. Meantime,  they  argue,  the  excitement  will 
distract  the  laborer  from  his  sufferings,  will 
make  him  forget  his  own  interests  in  the  emo- 
tions of  patriotism. 

In  the  development  of  nations  hate  is  highly 
important.  A  writer,2  sympathetic  to  the  con- 
federacy, brings  out  very  clearly  the  influence 
of  hate  in  the  development  of  the  attempted 
secession.  The  Southern  States  were  united 
primarily  against  what  they  regarded  as  the 
aggression  of  the  North.  Their  primary  objec- 
tion was  to  the  interference  with  their  institu- 
tions and  personal  freedom,  but  there  were  no 
common  ideals  which  hdld  them  together. 
When  the  secession  had  been  effected,  even  in 
the  midst  of  the  conflict  when  common  action 
usually  serves  to  unite  a  group,  they  became 
conscious  of  the  differences  between  them,  and 
these  seemed  to  many  too  important  to  be  neg- 
lected even  to  win  the  war  they  were  actually 
engaged  in.  Those  who  favored  slavery  as  an 
institution  came  into  conflict  with  those  who  re- 

1 N.  W.  Stephenson :  ' '  The  Confederacy,  Fifty  Years  After. ' ' 
Atlantic  Monthly,  vol.  123,  p.  750. 


82      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

garded  it  merely  as  a  symbol  of  Southern  inde- 
pendence, and  these  with  the  consistent  uphold- 
ers of  the  doctrine  of  States  Eights.  The  one 
group  was  not  willing  to  abandon  slavery  nor 
to  arm  the  slaves  with  promise  of  freedom  if 
they  won ;  the  others  were  not  inclined  to  accept 
a  strong  central  government,  however  essen- 
tial that  might  be  to  coordinated  effort.  The 
confederacy  came  near  splitting  on  these  points 
on  numerous  occasions,  because  they  seemed  al- 
most if  not  quite  as  important  as  did  the  main 
controversy  with  the  North.  The  lesser  hates 
grew  almost  to  equal  the  greater ;  and  there  was 
no  common  constructive  ideal  strong  enough  to 
unite  them  firmly  and  there  were  too  many 
minor  differences  to  drive  them  apart.  Had 
the  Confederacy  been  victorious  in  that  war  it 
would  undoubtedly  have  gone  to  pieces  soon 
on  other  issues,  unless,  of  course,  fear  and 
hatred  of  outside  forces  had  been  sufficient  to 
unite  it. 

We  can  see  the  same  tendencies  in  the  de- 
velopment of  alliances  of  nations  through 
treaties.  Lichnowsky3  has  said  that  nations 
only  make  treaties  of  alliance  against  some 
other  nation  or  group,  never  merely  for  the  mu- 
tual benefit  through  cooperation  of  the  nations 

•Lichnowsky:  "The  Future  of  Germany."  "Die  neue  Bun- 
echau";  Tr.  Littell's  Living  Age,  vol.  301,  1919,  p.  580. 


HATE  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  83 

that  combine.  He  made  the  statement  in  warn- 
ing against  a  treaty  of  alliance  of  Germany  with 
Russia,  on  the  ground  that  it  would  be  assumed 
to  be  and  would  really  be  a  combination  against 
England  and  would  be  provocative  of  future 
wars.  The  implication  can  be  readily  justified 
by  a  study  of  the  treaties  that  have  maintained 
the  "balance  of  power"  in  Europe  in  the  last 
century.  Whenever  one  nation  is  strong  enough 
to  threaten  others,  alliances  are  formed  against 
her;  when  she  loses  her  position  and  another 
comes  up,  the  alliance  shifts  to  have  another 
group  ready  to  counter  her  possible  attacks. 
The  dread  of  Napoleon  united  Europe  against 
France.  Fear  of  Eussia  followed,  a  fear  that 
even  brought  England  to  support  the  Turk  and 
kept  him  in  Europe  for  half  a  century  after 
he  would  naturally  have  been  expelled.  As 
Germany  became  strong  and  began  to  preach 
her  doctrine  of  war  for  aggression,  England 
and  Eussia  came  together  and  the  Turk  found 
a  champion  in  the  Triple  Alliance.  The  al- 
liances are  always  against  a  common  danger 
and  that  fact  brings  many  strange  partner- 
ships. 

Similarly  a  common  hate  is  one  of  the  most 
frequently  effective  factors  in  making  or 
uniting  a  nation.  The  United  States  was  made 
by  anger  at  Great  Britain,  or  more  truly  at  a 


84      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

king  and  his  ministers,  Italy  by  hatred  of  Aus- 
tria and  the  Pope,  Germany  by  the  hatred  of 
Napoleonic  rule.  Bismarck  consciously  made 
use  of  wars  and  the  hates  that  wars  engender 
to  remake  the  German  Empire.  The  league  of 
the  Balkan  nations  was  the  outcome  of  a  com- 
mon hate,  a  hate  that  ceased  to  be  common  al- 
most before  the  war  was  won,  with  a  consequent 
new  direction  of  hate  and  war  between  the 
earlier  allies.  In  the  Great  War,  as  in  all  wars, 
it  was  primarily  hate  or  fear  rather  than  pros- 
pect of  gain  or  mutual  sympathy  or  admiration 
that  bound  the  allies  together.  Barring  Ger- 
many and  possibly  Eoumania  and  Italy,  no 
country  seems  to  have  had  any  notion  of  gain  in 
entering  the  strife,  and  even  Italy  was  gov- 
erned in  some  part  by  her  traditional  hatred 
of  Austria  and  of  modern  German  methods  and 
of  individual  Germans  who  came  as  tourists 
and  business  men.  Austria  was  moved  by 
hatred  of  Serbia  and  fear  of  Germany,  Ger- 
many in  part  by  fear  of  the  Eussia  that  she 
thought  was  to  be,  France  by  fear  and  by  the 
hatred  left  from  the  earlier  war.  Both  France 
and  Eussia  were  given  the  final  impetus  by  the 
insulting  ultimatum  of  Germany,  while  the  peo- 
ple and  probably  the  government  of  Great  Brit- 
ain were  stirred  to  the  point  of  war  by  the  anger 
aroused  by  the  invasion  of  Belgium. 


HATE  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  85 

These  hates  are  not  fixed  but  fluctuate  in  in- 
tensity from  moment  to  moment  in  very  much 
the  same  way,  certainly  quite  as  quickly,  as  do 
likes  and  also  with  as  little  apparent  reason. 
Ee-alignments  on  the  basis  of  hates  can  be 
traced  in  national  as  in  intra-national  groups. 
The  change  of  partners  in  the  last  Balkan  war 
furnishes  one  of  the  best  instances  of  the  for- 
mer. The  split  between  Greece  and  Servia  on 
the  one  side  and  Bulgaria  on  the  other  could  be 
seen  to  grow  from  the  moment  Greece  captured 
Salonica.  It  was  carefully  repressed  until 
peace  was  made  or  was  on  the  point  of  being 
made  with  Turkey  and  then  suddenly  flamed 
out  in  the  war  that  enabled  Turkey  to  regain  a 
considerable  portion  of  her  losses  and  estab- 
lished the  enmities  that  have  determined  the 
alignments  of  the  Balkan  states  in  the  present 
conflicts.  Still  more  striking  is  the  conflict  of 
hates  in  Eussia  that  so  profoundly  changed  the 
whole  aspect  of  the  war  on  both  fronts.  Here 
the  conflict  of  dislikes  is  between  the  internal 
and  the  external.  The  Eussian  peasant  or  arti- 
san may  dislike  the  German,  but  this  paled  into 
insignificance  beside  his  hatred  of  the  wealthy 
and  of  the  system  that  enables  differences  in 
social  and  industrial  condition  to  exist. 

The  utility  of  combinations  through  hate  and 
the  vigorous  common  action  induced  by  it  are 


86      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

obvious  from  the  evolutionary  considerations. 
Societies  are  primarily  means  of  defense 
against  outside  agencies.  They  apparently  sur- 
vive as  units  in  the  original  savage  state  and 
both  the  organizations  and  the  hates  are  an  ex- 
pression of  the  needs  of  survival.  If  hate,  then, 
is  an  instinctive  response  against  an  injury  or 
a  threatened  injury,  cooperation  of  the  indi- 
viduals subject  to  injury  is  an  effective  if  not 
an  essential  agent  in  common  defense.  Unlike 
the  lower  animals,  in  whom  the  response  is 
aroused  only  by  direct  stimulation  by  pain  after 
the  injury,  man  undergoes  the  emotion  when 
he  hears  of  injury  or  has  reason  to  believe  that 
injury  is  to  be  suffered.  His  sufferings  are 
largely  mental  and  his  responses  are  to  im- 
agined or  foreseen  injuries  rather  than  to  real 
injuries.  On  the  whole  this  prevents  the  actual 
harm,  but  in  the  highly  organized  civilization 
with  its  overkeen  imagination  and  openness  to 
suggestion  it  may  cause  as  much  mental  an- 
guish as  it  prevents  of  bodily  injury.  In  no 
few  cases  it  generates  unnecessary  wars,  wars 
on  suspicion  of  injuries  that  are  not  intended. 
One  nation  becomes  suspicious  of  evil  intent  in 
another,  and  prepares  to  meet  the  assumed 
danger.  The  second  sees  the  preparations,  as- 
sumes that  some  offense  is  intended  against  it 
on  the  initiative  of  the  other  nation,  and  begins 


HATE  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  87 

its  own  preparations.  Each  suspicion  breeds 
new  suspicions,  each  preparation  new  prepara- 
tions, until  what  starts  as  a  protective  measure, 
becomes  an  actual  cause  of  the  act  that  was 
dreaded.  The  instinct  that  was  an  instrument 
of  advancement  and  even  a  necessity  for  the 
survival  of  the  original  primitive  society  has 
become  in  the  complex  modern  civilization  one, 
and  probably  the  most  important,  of  the  agen- 
cies of  destruction.  Although  it  must  be  granted 
that  once  a  nation  becomes  the  victim  of  a  war 
of  aggression  hate  is  still  the  most  important 
factor  in  national  defense. 

One  might  question  whether,  if  hate  is  an 
important  element  in  making  possible  the  de- 
velopment of  a  nation  or  a  feeling  of  national- 
ity, there  is  chance  for  a  disappearance  of  the 
unpleasant  group  of  emotions  without  corre- 
sponding loss  of  national  feeling  or  effective 
cooperation — whether  one  must  choose  between 
the  era  of  good  feeling  and  a  loss  of  all  the 
virile  if  not  vital  forces.  We  may  turn  back  to 
our  original  analogy  with  the  paramecium. 
While  the  group  was  held  together  at  first  by  a 
dislike  of  the  outside  medium  it  was  found  that 
as  the  group  kept  together  the  area  impreg- 
nated with  C02  gradually  extended  until  it  filled 
the  entire  microscope  slide.  Then  the  bond  was 
broken  and  the  members  could  go  anywhere. 


88      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

If  man  is  similar  we  might  expect  that  as  the 
different  groups  increased  in  size  by  the  ab- 
sorption of  new  races,  a  process  that  has  gone 
far  already,  we  might  hope  to  find  in  time  that 
all  nations  would  amalgamate  into  one  so  far 
as  common  emotion  goes  and  leave  no  one  out- 
side to  hate.  This  condition  is  in  sight  if  the 
League  of  Nations  succeeds. 

When  we  are  studying  the  forces  in  man's 
nature  that  are  important  for  the  development 
of  society  we  must  not  forget  the  warlike  emo- 
tions of  hatred  and  anger.  Human  association 
was  born  of  conflict  and  the  instincts  made  nec- 
essary by  conflict  were  the  most  certain  to  de- 
velop and  survive.  Even  the  gentlest,  most  al- 
truistic emotion  has  its  harsh  side.  Pity  or 
sympathy  is  always  likely  to  be  linked  with 
hatred  of  the  person  responsible  for  the  situa- 
tion that  appeals  to  one's  sympathy,  and  on  the 
whole  the  reaction  against  the  offender  is 
stronger  and  more  immediate  than  that  which 
would  remove  the  pain.  An  appeal  to  hate  is 
always  more  effective  in  an  argument  than  any 
other.  The  Bolshevist  mob  robs  and  murders 
the  rich  or  the  relatively  rich  before  it  con- 
siders means  that  shall  prevent  suffering  by 
the  poor  or  the  workman.  The  socialist,  in  the 
street  corner  orator  form,  at  least,  is  perfectly 
ready  to  overthrow  and  destroy  before  he  has 


HATE  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  89 

carefully  worked  out  a  plan  for  rebuilding.  In 
one's  own  reaction  to  political  events  and  in 
the  pages  of  history  one  sees  hatred  and  love 
mingled  in  the  reactions  of  the  individual  and 
of  society.  This  tendency  means  that  nation- 
ality thrives  on  opposition,  that  any  attempt 
to  crush  nationality  results  in  its  increase  or  a 
new  birth.  This  statement  is  illustrated  by 
every  attempt  that  has  been  made  in  history  to 
discourage  or  destroy  nationality  by  force  or 
by  law.  A  nation  is  strongest  when  fighting, 
whether  on  the  offensive  or  the  defensive.  Na- 
tionality is  a  two-fold  sentiment,  of  helpfulness 
towards  all  within  the  group  and  of  distrust  of 
all  that  is  without.  While  it  is  not  true  that 
had  there  been  no  war  or  if  wars  were  to  cease 
there  would  be  no  nationality,  it  is  certain  that 
coherence  is  emphasized  when  there  is  opposi- 
tion. 


CHAPTER  IV 

NATIONALITY  IN  HISTOEY 

WE  have  seen  reason  to  believe  that  nation- 
ality is  fundamentally  an  expression  of  the  so- 
cial instincts  modified  and  elaborated  by  habit 
and  learning,  which,  in  turn,  come  to  constitute 
tradition  and  custom.  As  phases  of  the  social 
instinct  we  distinguished  the  liking  for  the  mere 
presence  of  fellow  men,  whether  friend  or  not, 
the  instinct  that  brings  men  together;  sym- 
pathy, the  suffering  that  comes  with  knowledge 
that  another  is  suffering,  which  impels  to  much 
of  effective  cooperation,  and  finally,  fear  of 
others  which  enforces  upon  the  individual  re- 
spect for  the  opinions  and  conventions  of  the 
group.  Upon  the  basis  of  these  instincts,  which 
may  be  called  the  immutable  laws  of  human  na- 
ture, ideals  and  standards  develop  and  come 
to  have  the  force  of  laws.  The  instincts  cannot 
be  changed  but  the  ideals  have  arisen  in  the 
course  of  human  association  and  may  change 
with  conditions  and  the  progress  of  knowledge. 
They  may  arise  through  the  chance  suggestion 

90 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  91 

of  some  thinker,  but  are  tested  by  experience, 
and  are  transmitted  by  tradition.  Because  of 
the  instinctive  respect  for  the  opinions  of 
others,  they  have,  when  once  established,  almost 
absolute  power  and  they  are  often  mistaken  for 
instincts  because  of  their  universal  acceptance. 

Before  we  go  farther  in  the  discussion  of 
theories  we  may  to  advantage  consider  how 
these  principles  and  ideals  have  developed  and 
how  the  national  allegiance  may  change  at  the 
present  time.  These  changes  and  developments 
affect  only  the  ideals  or  standards ;  the  instincts 
we  must  regard  as  the  same  everywhere.  From 
these  studies  we  may  secure  suggestions  of 
other  laws  and  can  at  least  obtain  a  body  of 
facts  which  may  be  used  to  test  theoretical  con- 
clusions. Within  our  limits  we  can  do  no  more 
than  find  instances  of  the  way  in  which  nations 
have  developed,  so  far  as  it  can  be  determined 
from  readily  available  material.  A  complete 
treatment  would  require  volumes. 

Where  and  when  the  first  nation  developed 
we  do  not  know.  The  same  laws,  working  at 
different  places,  must  have  brought  men  to- 
gether into  societies  very  early,  certainly  before 
recorded  history  begins.  Nowhere  do  we  find 
at  present  a  people  so  primitive  that  there  is 
not  some  approach  to  a  national  organization, 
or  at  least  to  some  wider  than  the  family,  and 


92      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

from  no  time  in  the  past,  aside  from  the  doubt- 
ful records  of  the  Bible  and  the  myths  of  the 
Greeks  do  we  have  evidence  of  a  merely  family 
organization.  There  are  remnants  of  the  tribal 
elements  in  the  early  records  of  all  nations,  in 
the  early  law  and  tradition  of  the  Norseman, 
in  the  traditions  of  Greece,  as  well  as  in  the 
records  of  the  Old  Testament,  but  they  are  rem- 
nants of  an  earlier  stage  and  exist  side  by  side 
with  other  forms  of  organization.  We  can 
nevertheless  trace  the  principles  by  which 
wider  national  units  were  formed  out  of  smaller, 
and  the  principles  which  guided  the  develop- 
ment of  nations  out  of  fragments  left  over  from 
decaying  or  disintegrating  groups. 

The  Jew  from  the  earliest  day  to  this  has 
had  a  distinct  notion  of  nationality,  marked  by 
pride  in  his  institutions  and  in  his  history  and 
his  heroes  of  ancient  times,  in  his  accomplish- 
ments and  in  his  laws  which  still  persists  as 
pride  of  race  since  his  dispersion  over  the 
surface  of  the  earth.  In  the  biblical  times  it 
was  thoroughly  tinged  with  religion.  One  of  the 
national  perquisites  of  the  Jew  was  to  walk 
and  talk  with  God,  part  of  his  pride  was  in  hav- 
ing a  just  God  as  almost  his  peculiar  privilege. 
As  in  many  other  cases  it  is  difficult  to  deter- 
mine whether  nation  or  religion  comes  first. 
Sometimes  one  obtains  the  impression  that  God 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  93 

was  great  because  he  was  the  God  of  the  Jews 
rather  than  that  the  Jews  were  a  marked  and 
peculiar  people  because  of  the  closeness  of  their 
relation  to  God.  If  one  were  to  trace  the  feel- 
ing to  its  origins,  it  is  probable  that  one  would 
find  that  God  had  grown  into  the  affection  and 
respect  of  the  race  because  He  was  the  God  of 
the  ancestors,  because  of  His  connection  with 
the  triumphs  of  ancient  Israel,  and  because  He 
served  as  a  convenient  means  of  formulating 
and  personifying  the  ideals  and  standards  of 
the  race.  Keligion  and  race  were  closely  con- 
nected. On  a  relatively  small  scale  the  Jews 
had  a  nation,  something  for  which  they  would 
sacrifice  themselves,  and  which  was  superior 
in  its  appeal  even  to  the  family  relationship, 
although  there  was  always  in  it  something  of 
the  tribal  or  family  element. 

The  development  of  nationality  among  the 
Greeks  is  none  the  less  clear  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  it  takes  a  different  form  and  develops  dif- 
ferent ideals,  or  perhaps  embodies  its  ideals 
in  different  materials.  We  may  trace  in  the 
literature  the  development  from  the  tribal  or- 
ganization of  the  Homeric  age,  through  the  city 
state  of  Athens  or  Sparta,  to  the  empire  under 
Alexander.  We  can  trace  the  abandonment  of 
private  vengeance  in  favor  of  a  law  of  the  state, 
we  can  trace  the  development  of  a  willingness 


34      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

to  fight  for  the  nation  as  a  whole  rather  than 
for  the  individual  or  the  tribe.  The  national 
ideals  take  a  different  form  in  Greece  from  that 
which  they  had  in  Israel.  There  is  more  of 
unity  of  the  individuals  themselves,  a  sense  of 
the  strength  of  an  organization  as  self-depend- 
ent, as  opposed  to  the  reliance  upon  a  king  or 
a  priest.  The  ideals  of  the  Athenians  stand 
out  most  clearly  in  the  funeral  oration  of  Peri- 
cles. They  were,  first,  pride  in  the  attainments 
of  their  ancestors;  second,  pride  in  the  justice 
of  the  laws  and  the  dependence  of  the  nation 
upon  the  intelligence  and  virtue  of  the  citizens 
and  the  willingness  of  each  to  sacrifice  himself 
for  the  whole,  and,  finally,  pride  in  the  beauty 
and  wealth  of  the  city  itself  and  in  the  oppor- 
tunities tht.t  it  offered  for  pleasure  and  profit. 
The  Greeks  also  made  less  of  their  religion. 
The  gods  were  numerous  enough  to  permit  them 
to  be  measured  by  human  standards — if  they 
failed  to  measure  up  to  the  ideals,  they  might 
be  discarded.  Justice  and  the  other  ideals  were 
not  altogether  personified  in  the  gods  but  ex- 
isted independently  as  ideals  in  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  the  people.  The  Greeks  in  this  sense 
had  passed  from  religion  to  philosophy,  from 
personification  to  abstraction.  One  form  has 
the  same  effect  as  the  other,  they  are  but  dif- 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  95 

ferent  expressions  of  the  same  fundamental 
principle.1 

We  can  see  clearly,  too,  in  the  Greek  world 
the  expression  of  the  different  allegiances  with 
their  balanced  loves  and  hates,  their  tendencies 
to  combinations  of  different  sizes  and  on  differ- 
ent principles.  In  Sparta  and  Athens  at  their 
prime  there  seems  to  be  little  within  the  city 
state  that  conflicts  with  the  allegiance  to  the 
group  as  a  whole.  There  is  some  division  along 
the  lines  of  wealth  or  occupation.  The  dweller 
on  the  land  at  times  felt  drawn  to  others  who 
made  their  livelihood  in  the  same  way,  and  at 
times  we  can  detect  opposition  developing  be- 
tween the  dweller  in  the  city  and  the  dweller 
by  the  shore.  On  the  whole  there  was  probably 
less  of  class  interest  and  fewer  lines  of  division 
into  smaller  groups  than  we  find  in  the  modern 
nation.  Even  the  family  affiliations  were  care- 
fully subordinated  in  Sparta,  and  in  Athens  the 
tribe  seems  to  have  been  intentionally  and  suc- 
cessfully replaced  by  the  national  interests. 
The  wider  allegiance  among  the  Greeks  as  a 
whole  fluctuated  greatly.  There  seems  to  have 
been  a  feeling  of  solidarity  with  other  Greeks 
as  opposed  to  the  barbarians,  but  only  at  times 
of  great  danger  did  this  become  pronounced 
enough  to  lead  to  effective  combination.  It  was 

1  Zimmern :     ' '  The  Greek  Commonwealth. ' ' 


96      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

at  its  best  during  the  Persian  war,  but  quickly 
broke  down  under  the  influence  of  rivalry  be- 
tween Athens  and  Sparta.  When  it  develops 
again  in  the  empire,  the  real  national  solidarity 
is  gone.  External  force,  pride  in  a  great  leader, 
and  the  desire  for  the  loot  that  came  with  suc- 
cessful war  take  the  place  of  earlier  national 
cohesion.  These  were  not  sufficient  to  sustain 
the  empire  any  length  of  time.  Only  when  the 
state  was  destroyed  and  the  nation  existed  as  a 
purely  ideal  or  spiritual  unity  did  Greece  regain 
true  unity. 

In  Rome  we  see  an  equally  well  developed 
sense  of  national  unity,  developing  over  a  much 
wider  area,  and  based  upon  rather  different 
ideals.  If  the  Jew  may  be  said  to  have  lived 
for  his  God,  the  Greek  for  his  city  or  state 
and  the  ideals  of  justice  which  it  fostered,  Rome 
had  an  ideal  of  order  and  economic  prosperity. 
Subordinate  to  this  and  a  means  to  it  was  a 
just  rule  over  all,  but  it  was  justice  for  the  sake 
of  the  quiet  and  consequent  prosperity,  rather 
than  justice  in  the  abstract.  The  Roman  roads 
and  Roman  laws  are  equally  significant  of  the 
ideals  which  ruled  the  state  because  they  had 
become  rooted  in  the  beliefs  and  in  the  habits 
of  the  people.2  They  dominated  during  all 
forms  of  government  from  the  early  kings 

*  Marvin :     « *  The  Living  Past. ' ' 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  97 

through  the  republic  to  the  emperor.  When 
they  began  to  fall  before  the  difficulty  of  apply- 
ing them  under  different  local  conditions 
throughout  the  broad  extent  of  the  empire 
where  they  came  into  conflict  with  the  tradi- 
tions of  conquered  tribes,  the  empire  itself  be- 
gan to  disintegrate. 

i  At  no  time  has  so  large  a  proportion  of  the 
earth's  known  extent  been  united  under  one 
common  rule  over  so  long  a  period  as  under 
the  Romans.  Certainly  at  no  time  before  and 
at  no  time  for  centuries  after  that  had  there 
been  such  complete  recognition  of  the  equality 
of  man,  or,  to  speak  more  truly,  of  equality  of 
privilege  to  all  men  as  under  the  Roman  rule. 
True,  there  were  distinctions  between  master 
and  slave,  between  Roman  and  non-Roman,  but 
the  differences  could  be  obliterated  by  proved 
ability.  While  the  Athenians  boasted  that  they 
gave  rights  to  foreigners,  the  other  Greek  states 
were  much  more  exclusive.  The  Roman  seemed 
always  ready  to  incorporate  the  desirable  fea- 
tures of  any  tribe  or  nation  within  their  own 
system  and  were  quite  ready  to  leave  undis- 
turbed the  local  institutions  that  worked  well. 
Roman  citizenship  was  within  the  reach  of  any 
one  who  proved  worthy,  and  the  line  between 
slave  and  free  man  was  one  that  could  be  read- 
ily passed  by  all  who  proved  exceptional  abil- 


98      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

ity.  While  the  Roman  legions  were  an  impor- 
tant factor  in  introducing  and  maintaining  the 
Roman  peace,  the  common  ideals  and  the  com- 
mon opportunity  for  sharing  and  profiting  by 
them  were  the  real  forces  in  extending  and  per- 
petuating the  Roman  nation  and  the  Roman  in- 
fluence. In  spite  of  its  catholicity  of  taste  in 
modifying  its  laws  and  customs  to  meet  the 
needs  of  subject  peoples  and  even  in  accepting 
better  practices  into  its  own  code,  the  Roman 
ideals  always  dominated,  the  supremacy  of 
Rome  was  always  accepted,  the  Roman  state 
was  sufficiently  virile  to  absorb  and  still  to  rule. 
,We  find,  then,  that  tho  ideal  of  justice  which  de- 
veloped in  a  narrow  plain  in  central  Italy,  was 
sufficiently  strong  to  bind  together  the  few  thou- 
sand original  inhabitants,  nerve  them  to  resist 
numerous  aggressions  and  to  extend  itself 
through  their  efforts  over  the  greater  part  of 
the  known  world.  As  it  conquered  it  absorbed, 
so  that  the  final  body  was  not  merely  ruled  from 
above  but  the  whole  mass  of  citizen  and  subject 
alike  was  united  by  common  respect  for  the 
Roman  ideals  as  embodied  in  Roman  laws  and 
Roman  political  institutions.  These  ideals  and 
laws  outlasted  the  Roman  state  and  still  con- 
trol large  numbers  of  individuals,  and  in  less 
degree  the  modern  civilized  world. 
After  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  the  stage 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  99 

is  very  dim,  the  story  of  actual  historical  hap- 
penings is  not  always  clear  and  we  have  little 
record  that  throws  light  upon  the  motives  of 
the  great  body  of  individuals.  On  the  "whole  it 
seems  that  with  the  eruptions  of  the  northern 
barbarians,  the  central  organization  gradually 
broke  down  and  the  world  dissolved  into  small 
units  with  only  local  affiliations.  The  center 
of  reference  was  not  now  the  tribe,  but  the  local 
chieftain  or  feudal  baron.  The  loyalties  that 
remain  are  personal,  to  the  local  leader  first 
and  he  to  the  greater  and  so  on  up.  At  times, 
as  when  certain  of  the  Holy  Roman  emperors 
are  in  the  saddle,  there  is  a  reorganization  on 
something  that  approximates  national  lines,  but 
these  groupings  are  only  transitory  and  when 
they  exist  the  loyalty  is  to  the  man  rather  than 
to  the  state.  Only  the  intellectual  and  religious 
affiliations  extend  beyond  the  local  boundaries. 
The  intellectual  is  not  very  strong,  learning  is 
restricted  to  a  very  few  and  they,  because  of 
their  use  of  Latin,  came  into  slight  contact  with 
the  masses.  Even  the  church  tended  to  be  some- 
thing apart  from  the  mass  of  common  in- 
dividuals. Religion  no  longer  was  for  man, 
man  existed  for  religion.  Its  doctrines  were 
imposed  from  above  and  were  tbeir  own  justi- 
fication. At  times,  as  in  the  crusades,  the  com- 
mon religion  would  unite  mankind  everywhere 


100     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

for  a  common  end,  but  these  ends  were  tem- 
porary and  when  the  expedition  was  over  the 
organization  disbanded.  In  short,  it  seems  safe 
to  say  that  the  national  organization  disinte- 
grated in  the  medieval  period,  and  that  only 
very  gradually  did  nations  begin  to  arise  after- 
wards. 

"When  the  new  nations  did  begin  to  appear, 
they  took  on  a  slightly  different  character  from 
that  of  the  ancient  time.  The  modern  nation 
always  began  as  a  combination  to  resist  op- 
pression, and  to  establish  an  ideal.  If  we  re- 
gard the  feudal  system  with  its  personal  alle- 
giance as  typical  of  the  medieval  state,  the 
modern  is  characterized  by  a  revival  of  the  no- 
tion of  a  social  group  as  a  definite  entity,  with 
loyalty  to  the  group  and  its  peculiar  ideals. 
The  modern  state  is  different  from  the  ancient 
also  from  the  fact  that  in  the  former  the  ideals 
of  the  nation,  on  the  whole,  grow  up  within 
and  may  be  said  to  be  a  product  of  the  nation, 
while  the  modern  nations  are  often  new  or  re- 
vived outgrowths  or  embodiments  of  ideals.  In 
the  one  the  nation  came  first,  the  ideal  later,  in 
the  other  the  ideals  were  first  and  the  nation  ap- 
peared later  to  establish  it.  This  is  more  nat- 
ural than  it  seems  at  first  sight  for  when  an- 
cient civilizations  went  to  pieces  as  states  the 
ideals  still  survived;  they  were  cherished  by 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  101 

many  men  and  when  physical  hardships  became 
too  great,  they  were  revived  to  form  the  basis 
of  new  organizations  and  to  justify  the  instinc- 
tively organized  revolts.  Many  of  the  modern 
states,  most  of  the  very  modern,  are  embodi- 
ments of  these  ideals,  although  it  must  be 
granted  that  the  ideal  alone  did  not  suffice  to 
produce  a  state  until  some  practical  need  or 
anger  against  oppression  drove  a  group  to 
struggle  to  realize  it. 

While  the  state  first  fully  develops  according 
to  this  principle  in  the  late  eighteenth  century 
we  can  see  anticipations  of  it  on  a  small  scale 
here  and  there  in  the  medieval  period  and 
from  then  on.  Some  of  the  Italian  cities  ap- 
proach it  from  time  to  time  on  a  small  scale, 
and  the  Netherlands  of  the  sixteenth  century 
exhibit  it  in  full  measure. 

This  course  of  growth  is  seen  very  clearly 
in  the  development  of  Switzerland,  one  of  the 
earliest  to  appear  as  a  distinctly  national  unit, 
the  first  certainly  in  which  there  is  little  trace 
of  loyalty  to  a  leader  as  the  basis  or  starting 
point  of  the  organization.  Switzerland,  too, 
has  had  a  purely  democratic  form  of  govern- 
ment for  the  longest  time.  If  we  may  believe 
the  tradition,  the  men  of  the  original  four  can- 
tons were  driven  to  unite  in  the  revolt  by  the 
heavy  taxes  and  cruelty  of  the  Hapsburgs.  The 


102     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

revolt  itself  was  justified  by  an  appeal  to  the 
general  principle  of  liberty.  After  the  original 
revolt  was  successful,  pride  in  the  deeds  of  the 
men  who  had  struggled  and  won,  of  Tell  and  of 
Arnold  von  Winkelried,  added  enthusiasm  to 
the  union  and  cooperation  of  the  descendants. 
The  common  tradition,  pride  in  ancestors,  and 
the  continued  necessity  for  protection  against 
strong  and  dangerous  neighbors  sufficed  to  con- 
tinue and  to  strengthen  the  bond.  Even  when 
with  the  growth  of  the  nation  new  groups  were 
added,  some  with  different  languages,  and  when 
religious  differences  made  their  appearance,  the 
national  unity  triumphed.  Switzerland  may 
safely  be  said  to  be  the  first  of  the  modern  na- 
tions to  have  developed  through  a  desire  for 
liberty.  As  such  it  was  a  place  of  refuge  for 
those  seeking  freedom  all  through  the  modern 
period.  As  in  most  of  medieval  history  many 
of  the  heroic  events  and  even  the  motives  for 
the  original  organization  may  have  been  a  con- 
struction of  later  origin.  But  they  neverthe- 
less reveal  the  ideals  of  the  people  who  origi- 
nated and  accepted  the  myths,  the  Swiss  of  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  century.  They  indicate 
that  with  the  renaissance  we  had  in  Switzerland 
a  real  nation,  held  together  by  ideals  of  free- 
dom and  strong  enough  to  maintain  its  posi- 
tion. It  is  probable  that  it  is  in  Switzerland 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  103 

we  have  the  strongest  national  consciousness 
that  has  persisted  for  the  longest  period  of  any 
in  the  modern  world. 

In  other  countries  the  course  of  the  develop- 
ment is  more  obscure.  England  certainly  had 
a  gradually  increasing  consciousness  of  being 
a  distinct  people  from  a  very  early  time.  It 
is  the  more  difficult  to  determine  in  what  it  con- 
sisted because  it  developed  so  gradually  and 
never  had  occasion  to  burst  forth  into  any 
single  expression.  As  everywhere,  it  increased 
during  periods  of  external  conflict  and  was  sub- 
ordinated to  class  and  religious  allegiances 
during  periods  of  internal  strife.  It  may  be 
said  to  have  had  its  first  marked  development 
during  the  aggressive  campaigns  of  the  Hun- 
dred Years '  War  and  was  especially  strong  dur- 
ing the  threat  of  the  Spanish  Armada.  Eng- 
land most  nearly  approaches  the  ancient  Bo- 
mans  in  the  nature  of  the  national  conscious- 
ness, in  that  that  consciousness  has  been  closely 
connected  with  the  development  of  the  practical 
institutions.  The  ideals  most  firmly  impressed 
were  the  ideals  of  justice,  which  were  respected 
in  fact,  in  spite  of  marked  theoretical  differ- 
ences in  privileges  between  the  orders  of  so- 
ciety and  even  the  degrees  of  education.  The 
most  distinctive  characteristics  of  the  nation 
are  its  laws,  which  were  accepted  as  superior 


to  the  authority  of  the  king  in  the  Magna 
Charta,  and  have  been  supreme  for  all  ever 
since  with  constant  growth  through  adaptation 
to  the  changing  ideals  of  the  people.  About 
this  develops  the  sacredness  of  the  person  and 
of  the  home  of  the  common  citizens,  and  an 
ideal  of  civil  liberty  that  is  equaled  in  few  other 
countries.  Together  with  this  has  gone  a  grad- 
ual perfection  in  the  organization  of  business 
and  manufacture,  and  an  ideal  of  business  suc- 
cess that  reminds  one  of  the  Eoman  organiza- 
tion and  ideals.  At  times  in  the  later  years  it 
is  probable  that  this  ideal  has  been  permitted 
to  dominate  the  other  ideal  of  the  personal 
rights  of  the  individual  in  a  way  that  has  been 
unfortunate  for  the  lower  members  of  the  so- 
cial order,  perhaps  in  even  greater  degree  than 
in  the  other  commercial  states. 

The  development  of  the  spirit  of  nationality 
in  England  is  particularly  important  since  the 
spurs  to  that  development  so  prominent  in  most 
other  nations,  resistance  to  an  aggressor  or  op- 
pressor, have  been  singularly  lacking.  England 
has  never  been  conquered  since  it  was  England 
and  seldom  seriously  threatened  by  a  foreign 
power.  It  gives  evidence  that  the  spirit  of 
nationality  may  develop  to  the  full  in  a  people 
who  have  usually  been  moved  by  the  desire  to 
cooperate,  by  the  sympathetic  instincts,  rather 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  105 

than  by  the  more  active  protective  or  aggres- 
sive impulses.  While  the  ideals  have  seldom 
come  to  full  consciousness,  and  the  nature  of 
the  nation  is  therefore  rather  more  difficult  to 
trace,  no  one  would  deny  the  existence  in  the 
Englishman  of  a  strong  national  conscious- 
ness. And  that,  too,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
the  lines  between  the  classes  and  between  dif- 
ferent forms  of  religious  beliefs  are  more  rigid- 
ly drawn  and  society  more  conventionalized 
than  in  other  modern  states. 

In  France,  loyalty  to  the  nation  as  a  whole 
has  alternated  with  adherence  to  the  local 
group.  In  the  early  years  the  local  allegiances 
were  much  stronger  than  loyalty  to  the  central 
authority,  and  since  the  central  authority  was 
the  king,  loyalty  was  a  personal  loyalty,  rather 
than  loyalty  to  the  nation  as  such.  A  man  was 
less  a  Frenchman  than  a  follower  of  Louis  or 
of  Henry.  At  times,  as  when  Jeanne  d'Arc 
stirred  the  nation,  the  national  spirit  is  brought 
to  the  fore.  All  are  French  and  will  fight  to 
the  death  rather  than  be  subjected  by  the  hated 
Englishman.  On  the  whole,  however,  in  me- 
dieval and  modern  France  to  the  death  of 
Louis  XIV,  the  consciousness  of  unity  is  a  com- 
mon dependence  on  the  reigning  family.  This 
varies  from  time  to  time  with  the  popularity  of 
the  monarch,  and  on  the  whole  there  is  a  pro- 


106     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

grassing  national  spirit,  an  allegiance  to  the 
whole  people  as  a  group  or  entity.  A  man  be- 
comes gradually  more  a  Frenchman  than  a  Bre- 
ton or  a  Norman,  or  Provencal,  and  more  a 
citizen  and  less  a  subject. 

Of  Germany  and  Italy  little  is  to  be  added 
to  what  has  been  said  of  Europe  in  general. 
Both  had  such  checkered  careers  from  the  fall 
of  the  Koman  Empire  to  the  time  of  Napoleon, 
or  really  until  the  period  of  the  universal  blos- 
soming of  the  national  consciousness  in  the 
middle  of  the  last  century,  that  it  is  impossible 
to  say  at  most  times  whether  there  is  a  nation 
or  only  a  group  of  principalities,  and,  if  both 
exist,  whether  the  whole  or  the  part  is  the  ob- 
ject of  the  individual's  allegiance  or  loyalty. 
During  the  greater  portion  of  this  period  it  is 
fairly  clear  that  in  Italy  the  sense  of  a  com- 
mon nationality  was  at  a  low  ebb.  Undoubted- 
ly the  common  language,  and  at  times  the  recog- 
nition of  the  Pope  as  the  head  of  the  church 
with  claims  to  temporal  power  made  many  in- 
dividuals count  themselves  as  Italians  when 
there  was  no  common  state  to  which  they  might 
belong.  This  was  certainly  true  of  many  upon 
whom  Dante  had  an  influence,  both  his  imme- 
diate successors  and  his  intellectual  disciples 
through  the  centuries.  If  one  were  to  choose 
whether  he  were  Italian  or  French  there  would 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  107 

be  no  question,  except  in  the  region  of  Savoy, 
but  if  the  question  were  raised  as  to  whether 
one  were  Florentine  or  Italian,  or  Venetian  or 
Italian,  the  answer  would  not  be  quite  so  easy. 
Here,  too,  the  consciousness  of  nationality 
was  stimulated  at  times  by  the  conflicts  with  the 
German  Holy  Roman  emperors,  to  lapse  again 
when  no  outside  force  threatened. 

In  Germany  the  problem  is  still  more  diffi- 
cult and  the  situation  varies  more  from  time 
to  time.  The  personal  allegiance  is,  as  in 
France,  the  most  important  element.  If  we  re- 
gard the  Holy  Roman  emperors  as  the  rulers 
of  Germany,  we  may  say  that  when  a  strong 
man  is  on  the  throne,  there  is  a  sense  of  unity 
and  a  recognition  of  a  common  authority ;  when 
a  weak  man  succeeds,  the  empire  dissolves  into 
its  constituent  parts.  Through  the  empire  even 
when  divided  politically  there  is  probably  al- 
ways some  recognition  of  a  wider  Deutschthvm. 
How  much,  it  is  particularly  difficult  to  say,  for 
since  the  modern  revival  of  the  empire,  Ger- 
man historians  have  undoubtedly  exaggerated 
the  unity  of  earlier  periods  for  political  effect 
upon  the  present  generation.  When  Luther  or- 
ganized his  revolt  against  the  Church  a  na- 
tional spirit  was  aroused  which  was  strength- 
ened by  his  translation  of  the  Bible  and  the 
consequent  general  literary  use  of  the  German 


108    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

language.  In  neither  Germany  nor  Italy  was 
there  a  nation  in  the  sense  that  we  find  one 
in  Switzerland,  in  Holland,  in  England,  or  even 
in  France,  although  in  both  many  of  the  men- 
tal or  social  forces  essential  to  the  develop- 
ment of  a  nation  are  operative. 

It  is  not  until  the  latter  part  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  that  we  first  find  full  recogni- 
tion of  the  nation  as  an  organic  unity,  a  whole 
with  the  action  of  the  parts  determined  by  the 
parts  instead  of  from  without  or  from  above. 
Before  that  the  picture  of  the  state  was  of  a 
mass  of  individuals  dominated  by  superior  au- 
thority. Even  when  the  warrant  for  the  or- 
ganization really  came  from  the  ideals  of  the 
individuals  who  composed  it,  the  rules  were 
justified  by  reference  to  some  higher  power, 
human  or  divine.  From  the  Greeks  down  men 
had  sought  the  best  means  of  securing  jus- 
tice and  of  giving  each  man  his  rights, 
but  in  theory  the  standard  of  justice  was  al- 
ways derived  from  a  lawgiver,  from  God  or 
a  god,  or  at  the  best  from  some  immutable  and 
logically  deduced  principle  which  was  only 
recognized  by  man,  not  made  by  him  or  derived 
from  his  nature  and  rights.  When,  as  hap- 
pened not  infrequently  in  the  middle  ages,  ap- 
peal was  taken  from  the  king  or  pope  it  was 
always  to  the  law  of  God  rather  than  to  the 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  109 

rights  of  man.  Man  was  made  for  the  state  or 
for  the  law  or  for  the  nation,  not  the  state  or 
the  law  or  religion  for  man.  It  should  be  said 
that  most  of  the  early  theories  of  human  so- 
ciety follow  Plato  in  considering  the  political 
organization  of  the  state  as  primary  and  in  de- 
riving justice  from  theoretical  principles  rather 
than  from  the  nation  as  a  social  body,  devel- 
oped by  natural  laws. 

With  the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth  century 
the  emphasis  is  shifted  fairly  suddenly  to  the 
problems  of  the  nation  as  such  and  of  the  ways 
in  which  peoples  might  have  developed  states 
for  themselves.  The  assumption  gradually 
gains  acceptance  that,  if  there  were  no  central 
authority  or  divine  warrants  for  a  social  or  po- 
litical organization,  one  must  have  developed 
because  of  the  nature  of  mankind.  This 
way  of  looking  at  the  problem  was  a  natural 
outcome  of  the  skeptical  and  naturalistic  atti- 
tude of  the  philosophers  from  Descartes  to  Con- 
dillac,  Lamettrie  and  Hume,  but  it  found  more 
definite  expression  in  the  very  popular  works 
of  the  Encyclopedists  and  Voltaire.  It  took  the 
form  that  exercised  a  profound  influence  on  po- 
litical and  social  theories  in  the  writings  of 
Montesquieu  and  particularly  in  the  contrat 
social  of  Eousseau.  Rousseau's  insistence  on 
the  natural  goodness  of  mankind  in  a  state  of 


110     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

nature,  and  his  belief  that  government  arose 
and  must  have  arisen  from  the  very  character 
of  human  nature  by  the  spontaneous  union  of 
men  into  groups  appealed  strongly  to  the  im- 
agination of  the  western  world  and  became  the 
political  bible  of  the  epoch.  It  is  not  within 
our  province  to  trace  the  origin  of  Rousseau's 
theory.  It  is  probable  that  other  men  were  ex- 
pressing the  same  theory;  certainly  the  cur- 
rent philosophy  led  rather  easily  to  the  con- 
clusion expressed.  As  happens  so  frequently 
it  fell  to  the  lot  of  Rousseau  to  crystallize  and 
formulate  what  had  been  previously  only  sug- 
gested, and  he  is  given  credit,  whether  de- 
servedly or  not,  for  a  radical  departure  in  po- 
litical theory. 

Beginning  with  the  American  Revolution  the 
history  of  modern  times  has  seen  one  nation 
after  another  develop  a  vigorous  and  very  often 
an  aggressive  democracy  which  embodies  in 
some  degree  the  same  fundamental  principles. 
In  each  instance  the  change  in  the  form  of  gov- 
ernment has  followed  approximately  the  same 
course.  There  was  usually  some  definite  abuse 
or  discomfort ;  efforts  were  made  to  remove  or 
to  reduce  it  and  in  the  process  the  movement 
went  farther  than  was  at  first  intended.  In 
the  first  two  cases,  too,  political  ideals  have 
been  adduced  to  warrant  or  to  justify  the  po- 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  111 

litical  change,  but  these  theories  have  been 
brought  in  to  excuse  or  to  advance  the  change. 
They  do  not  originate  the  movement.  It  chanced 
that  the  most  immediate  cause  for  complaint  in 
each  of  the  peoples  was  that  the  taxes  were 
unfairly  imposed.  It  was  not  so  much  the  bur- 
densomeness  of  the  taxes,  although  in  France 
they  were  burdensome,  as  the  way  in  which 
they  were  levied  that  aroused  the  ire  of  the 
masses.  In  America  the  exactions  were  not  suf- 
ficient to  produce  any  real  suffering  or  to  take 
any  undue  proportion  of  the  total  income.  The 
resentment  was  against  the  injustice,  the  men- 
tal rather  than  the  physical  anguish.  Probably 
the  resentment  started  because  the  taxes  were 
of  a  new  kind  and  the  language  of  the  decree 
that  assessed  them  was  not  altogether  tactful. 
This  led  to  seeking  an  excuse  for  not  paying 
them.  Partly  they  came  after  the  stress  of  a 
successful  war  when  the  colonies  felt  that  the 
mother  country  should  have  been  grateful  for 
their  services  and  shown  increased  generosity 
rather  than  have  added  an  unwonted  burden. 
The  objections  to  the  taxes  were  not  much 
greater  than  were  those  of  the  Englishman  at 
home  to  the  corresponding  imposts,  the  cider 
tax,  for  instance. 

Before  the  taxes  were  imposed,  the  attitude 
of  the  colonists  towards  England  had  been  as 


112     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

friendly  as  could  be  desired,  more  friendly  than 
the  relation  between  the  different  colonies  them- 
selves. There  was  less  in  common  between  the 
Puritans  of  New  England  and  the  Cavaliers 
of  Virginia  or  the  Catholics  of  Maryland  than 
between  any  of  the  colonies  and  England.  The 
political  theories  of  each  of  the  colonies  were 
represented  by  a  certain  group  or  class  in  the 
old  country,  while  they  were  absolutely  antag- 
onistic among  themselves.  In  fact  one  of  the 
members  of  Parliament  who  favored  the  im- 
position of  the  new  taxes  argued  that  the  dif- 
ferences between  the  colonies  would  prevent 
them  from  uniting  for  common  defense.  Even 
after  the  temporary  repeal  of  the  stamp  tax  in 
1766,  the  colonies  gave  over  all  opposition  to 
the  king  and  celebrated  his  birthday  as  loyal 
and  friendly  subjects.  Once  the  attitude  of 
opposition  had  been  taken,  however,  it  grew 
on  both  sides.  The  colonists  were  less  con- 
cerned about  the  money  loss  than  the  principle, 
and  the  king  was  anxious  to  compel  the  colonies 
to  pay,  not  so  much  because  he  needed  the  rev- 
enue— he  was  in  danger  of  spending  more  than 
that  amounted  to  in  the  cost  of  collection — as 
because  he  would  not  be  defied.  "What  strikes 
one  most  is  the  suddenness  with  which  the  storm 
breaks.  It  is  not  a  case  in  which  there  had 
been  a  long  period  of  irritation  that  suddenly 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  113 

rose  to  unendurable  force.  Bather,  all  had  been 
harmonious  and  the  best  of  relations  had  ex- 
isted. Then  with  the  passage  of  a  single  bill 
opposition  came  at  once  and  went  compara- 
tively quickly  to  the  point  of  action. 

When  the  dispute  begins,  the  feelings  grow 
constantly  stronger  on  both  sides.  As  usual, 
the  instinctive  resentment  was  quickly  justi- 
fied by  theory.  As  John  Morley  has  said,  the 
feeling  or  the  act  is  instinctive,  only  later  is 
a  rational  explanation  and,  in  case  of  need,  a 
justification  given  for  it.  The  reason  alleged 
may  or  may  not  be  the  real  cause  of  the  re- 
sentment. In  this  instance,  we  find  after  the 
resentment  arose  that  a  large  number  of  beau- 
tiful theories  were  developed  or  revived  to 
prove  that  taxes  should  not  be  paid  and  to 
arouse  the  more  lethargic  to  opposition.  Some 
of  these  theories,  such  as  the  argument  that 
there  could  be  no  taxation  without  representa- 
tion, were  derived  from  pure  English  sources. 
Others  were  modifications  of  Rousseau's  prin- 
ciples of  natural  rights.  The  appeal  to  liberty, 
with  little  attempt  to  define  what  was  meant 
by  liberty  and  with  shades  of  meaning  that 
varied  from  man  to  man,  was  the  most  common. 
What  had  been  accepted  without  question  be- 
fore the  great  cause  of  irritation  had  been  given 
was  now  a  violation  of  the  sacred  principle  and 


114     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

must  be  eliminated  at  all  cost.  These  furnished 
the  ideal  element  that  was  accepted  after  the 
fact  as  the  reason  for  the  outburst  and  all  of 
the  resistance  that  was  offered.  If  objection 
to  taxes,  the  objection  to  the  remarks  of  the 
new  government  in  England  and  probably,  too, 
dislike  of  the  more  prosperous  colonials  who 
as  a  rule  arrayed  themselves  on  the  side  of  the 
government,  really  produced  the  emotions ;  the 
cause  assigned  was  the  more  presentable  doc- 
trine of  liberty  and  the  infringement  upon  local 
freedom  of  government.  That  the  resentment 
would  have  been  felt  if  the  way  had  not  been 
prepared  by  the  theories  of  liberty  and  other 
liberal  political  theories  everywhere  in  the  air, 
is  not  probable.  That  the  ideals  of  liberty  and 
self-government  alone  would  have  produced  the 
revolt  in  the  absence  of  anger  at  a  disturbance 
of  the  regular  course  of  life  is  still  less  prob- 
able. 

After  the  issue  had  been  drawn  and  the  ma- 
jority of  colonists  had  been  united  in  opposi- 
tion, the  common  hate  and  the  combined  action 
against  the  enemy  brought  almost  at  once  the 
sense  of  community  that  constitutes  the  essence 
of  nationality.  Differences  in  political  theory, 
in  social  organization,  in  religion  were  all  for- 
gotten for  the  time  being  in  the  prosecution  of 
the  great  purpose.  After  peace  had  been  made, 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  115 

the  necessity  for  continued  cooperation  and  the 
memory  of  common  deeds  and  the  common  suf- 
ferings of  the  struggle  continued  to  hold  all  to- 
gether, until  the  spirit  could  be  embodied  in 
written  law  and  in  accepted  practice,  which  con- 
stitute the  state.  When  all  was  peaceful  in  for- 
eign relations,  the  older  differences  in  theory 
and  in  temperament  became  more  prominent 
and  for  the  first  quarter  century  it  was  now 
and  again  a  question  whether  the  instincts  that 
divide  or  the  instincts  that  unite  would  domi- 
nate. In  the  second  war  with  great  Britain  and 
the  period  that  preceded,  the  dislike  of  one  sec- 
tion by  the  other  very  nearly  overcame  the  co- 
hesive forces,  and  it  was  not  until  the  period 
of  prosperity  which  followed  that  war  that  the 
nation  was  assured.  During  the  disruption  of 
the  nation  in  the  Civil  War  the  bonds  between 
the  people  were  completely  severed;  only  the 
forces  of  the  state,  the  political  rather  than  the 
emotional  union,  survived. 

The  laws  that  control  and  the  course  of  the 
changes  in  France  are  very  similar.  The  occa- 
sion for  the  commotion  was  objection  to  taxes; 
the  revolution  was  not  intended  when  objec- 
tions were  first  made,  and  after  the  break  had 
been  made  the  accomplished  acts  were  justi- 
fied in  terms  of  Rousseau's  theory  and  of  the 
theory  of  the  American  Revolution.  Each  step 


116    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

taken  was  also  discussed  in  advance  and  the 
principles  of  the  rights  of  man  and  human  free- 
dom advocated  in  the  Assembly.  But  the  series 
of  moves  made  towards  increasing  democracy 
came  suddenly  and  seem  never  to  have  been  in- 
tended by  the  responsible  leaders,  if  any  of 
the  leaders  could  be  regarded  as  responsible. 
Thus  we  find  an  Assembly  called  to  discuss  im- 
proved methods  of  levying  taxes  spending  its 
time  discussing  more  or  less  fatuously  almost 
every  other  problem  of  government,  and  finally 
ending  by  being  compelled  by  an  outside  force, 
the  Parisian  mob,  to  limit  the  powers  of  the 
monarchy.  The  king  gave  way  to  the  Assem- 
bly, the  Assembly  to  the  Convention,  the  Con- 
vention in  reality  to  a  few  leaders  and  to  the 
mob.  Absence  of  the  local  self-government  and 
lack  of  a  foreign  enemy  to  force  internal  co- 
hesion, that  had  been  present  in  the  American 
Revolution,  led  to  a  constant  increase  in  an- 
archy. The  old  regime  dissolved,  but  no  new 
organization  appeared  sufficient  to  take  the 
necessary  responsibility  for  the  simplest  acts 
of  government.  Each  man  in  authority  was 
ready  to  execute  any  one  that  he  feared  might 
be  an  enemy  lest  he  himself  should  be  a  victim 
later.  While  the  ideals  of  liberty  and  of  love 
were  upon  the  lips  of  every  one,  each  became 
a  petty  tyrant  when  he  had  a  chance  and  pas- 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  117 

sions  of  hate  were  very  much  more  in  evidence 
than  deeds  of  kindness. 

Striking,  too,  was  the  fact  that  the  armies 
of  the  Revolution  at  the  first  excuse  started 
out  on  the  paths  of  conquest,  and  while  the 
words  and  songs  of  freedom  and  the  spirit  of 
independence  inspired  them  with  an  unwonted 
courage  and  effectiveness,  their  attitude  to- 
wards the  conquered  was  the  same  as  that  of 
the  older  autocrats  except  perhaps  that  they 
were  even  more  cruel  and  overbearing  be- 
cause of  the  belief  that  the  new  freedom  gave 
them  a  great  superiority  over  their  less  pro- 
gressive neighbors.  Of  the  three  watchwords 
introduced  by  the  revolution  and  still  the  motto 
of  France,  " liberty"  came  to  mean  merely  li- 
cense to  oppress  every  one  who  was  weak, 
"equality"  was  for  the  public  while  the  lead- 
ers successively  prescribed  elaborate  forms  of 
servility  for  all  who  approached  them,  and 
"fraternity"  was  reserved  for  men  of  the  same 
party  or  at  the  most  of  the  same  nation.  The 
whole  course  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the 
fact  that  the  tender  and  aggressive  instincts, 
love  and  hate,  are  present  in  nearly  equal  meas- 
ure in  every  individual.  When  freed  from  the 
restraint  of  habit,  particularly  of  habit  and 
convention  as  embodied  in  institutions,  the  op- 
posed instincts  alternate  in  such  rapid  succes- 


118     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

sion  that  social  life  is  at  best  uncertain,  and  is 
almost  sure  to  become  frightful.  The  Russian 
chaos  offers,  if  we  may  trust  reports,  further 
evidence  of  the  same  laws. 

Not  the  least  instructive  part  of  the  French 
Revolution  is  its  far-reaching  effect  upon  the 
spirit  of  the  world.  Although  it  ended  in  a 
riot  of  internal  disorganization,  which  made  its 
strongest  supporters  enthusiastically  welcome 
a  dictator  as  a  relief,  it  is  the  most  important 
single  influence  in  the  remaking  of  the  states  of 
Europe  into  nations.  Its  principles,  which 
failed  absolutely  in  practice,  persisted  as  ac- 
cepted theories  during  the  succeeding  regimes 
of  the  Empire  and  of  the  new  monarchy  and,  as 
they  were  adopted  by  states  which  were  suffi- 
ciently organized  to  repress  the  excesses  of  the 
uncontrolled  conflicting  instincts  and  emotions, 
became  the  guiding  influence  in  each  of  the  new 
free  nations.  While  the  first  failure  made  the 
Revolutionary  governments  abhorrent  to  the 
French  themselves  and  to  the  enlightened 
world,  the  ideals  from  which  the  Revolution 
grew,  or  which  justified  it  to  thei  populace, 
were  unaffected.  In  the  French  nation  itself 
they  have  remained  the  watchwords  of  the 
people,  and  have  sought  embodiment  in  institu- 
tions whenever  opportunity  offered.  Even 
under  Napoleon  they  served  to  unite  the  people 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  119 

and  to  nerve  the  armies  to  conflict.  Common 
acceptance  of  them  was  an  important  element 
in  the  spirit  of  unity  that  has  made  the  French 
people  a  nation  from  that  day  to  this,  in  spite 
of  temporary  departures  from  freedom  in  the 
form  of  government. 

There  has  been  an  exuberant  growth  of  na- 
tionalities in  the  nineteenth  and  in  the  early 
years  of  the  twentieth  centuries.  As  we  stand 
now  at  the  end  of  the  war  it  seems  that  many 
more  will  be  born  or  embodied  in  states  in 
the  next  few  years.  The  development  of  these 
modern  nationalities  has  followed  a  course  more 
like  that  of  the  American  than  of  the  French 
Revolution,  while  one,  Germany,  has  a  law  all 
her  own.  One  of  the  striking  cases  is  the  de- 
velopment of  modern  Italy.  The  Italian  sense 
of  unity  persisted,  or  was  at  least  sporadically 
reawakened  at  intervals  after  the  fall  of  the 
Eoman  Empire.  It  is  probably  safe  to  say  that 
the  common  people  had  been  united  in  aspira- 
tions to  a  certain  extent  from  the  time  of  Dante, 
but  had  been  prevented  from  realizing  that 
union  by  the  heads  of  states.  On  the  whole  the 
strictly  Italian  consciousness  had  been  subordi- 
nated to  the  local  allegiances  and  to  the  re- 
ligious devotion  to  the  Pope.  Dante  had  at- 
tempted to  rearouse  it  and  had  left  an  abiding 
reminder  of  the  possibilities  and  an  eloquent 


120     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

appeal  for  their  attainment.  Still  the  emotional 
response  was  mild,  there  was  little  embodiment 
of  it  in  institutions  and  the  love  of  a  united 
Italy  was  largely  Platonic. 

The  end  of  a  united  Italy  with  a  single  politi- 
cal organization  was  realized  in  the  usual  way. 
Mazzini  furnished  the  ideals,  or  at  least  vivi- 
fied to  every  Italian  the  ideals  of  the  century. 
The  Austrian,  the  Pope,  and  the  King  of  Naples 
furnished  the  more  painful  and  immediately 
stirring  incentives  of  oppression,  cruel  punish- 
ments, over-taxation  and  suppression  of  free 
speech.  Not  the  least  important  was  the  states- 
manship of  Cavour.  Finally  the  enthusiasm 
and  generalship  of  Garibaldi  touched  off  the 
material  prepared  for  the  conflagration,  and 
provided  the  heroic  figure  that  inspired  any 
hesitating  patriot.  The  pride  in  the  early  his- 
tory and  the  appeals  of  Mazzini,  reenforced  and 
advertised  by  the  failure  of  the  earlier  revolts 
and  the  cruelty  that  was  used  in  suppressing 
them,  had  prepared  the  way  and,  when  leader- 
ship was  provided,  the  spirit  of  nationality 
flamed  forth  and  an  independent  state  was  born. 
It  is  interesting  that  the  rallying  cry  of  Maz- 
zini, the  atheist,  pro  popolo  e  deo,  should  have 
contained  the  religious  element.  This  must 
have  seemed  to  the  followers  of  the  church  most 
ironical,  and  the  ultra-sceptical  mind  of  Maz- 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  121 

zini  himself  must  have  given  it  a  peculiar  in- 
terpretation. One  might  argue  from  this  that 
the  ideals  which  are  used  to  warrant  a  revolt 
need  not  express  its  real  cause — that  the  rally- 
ing cries  need  not  be  taken  literally.  Any 
watchword  will  arouse  the  people,  provided 
only  it  obtains  sufficient  vogue.  Not  its  mean- 
ings but  its  emotional  association  is  impor- 
tant. 

In  the  nations  that  are  now  just  coming  into 
political  recognition  or  are  being  revived,  the 
Ukrainians,  the  Czechs,  the  Slovenes  and  Jugo- 
Slavs,  the  Poles,  one  may  see  the  same  ele- 
ments. Each  has  a  common  and  peculiar  lan- 
guage, an  ancient  history  and  in  some  cases  an 
ancient  literature  in  which  they  have  taken  a 
gradually  increasing  pride.  All  have  been  im- 
pelled to  seek  an  independent  political  exist- 
ence by  the  oppressive  form  of  government  to 
which  they  have  been  subjected,  and  now  that 
the  great  powers  that  have  been  holding  them 
in  check  are  weakened  or  dissolved  they  are 
ready  to  develop  the  political  independence 
that  their  national  existence  has  long  demanded 
and  deserved.  The  ideals  are  fully  accepted; 
all  that  is  necessary  is  a  chance  to  give  expres- 
sion to  them.  The  new  states  they  are  estab- 
lishing will  give  an  opportunity  to  test  at  once 
the  virility  of  the  national  spirit,  and  the  capac- 


122    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

ity  of  the  people  for  political  organization  and 
coherence. 

.  The  development  of  German  unity  is  of  par- 
ticular interest  from  the  fact  that  the  instinc- 
tive bonds  that  brought  the  various  parts  of 
the  Empire  together  are  very  different  from 
those  that  were  effective  in  the  other  states  of 
the  western  world.  The  first  impulse  came 
from  the  long  and  uncertain  but  finally  suc- 
cessful struggle  against  Napoleon.  After  some 
centuries  of  fighting  against  each  other  and  in 
various  combinations  against  foreign  foes,  the 
northern  German  states  found  themselves 
united  at  that  time  against  a  common  enemy, 
an  enemy  that  on  several  occasions  had  an  op- 
portunity to  prove  his  capacity  as  an  oppressor. 
Coupled  with  this  there  had  been  a  literary  and 
philosophical  awakening  that  had  developed  a 
system  of  inspiring  ideals,  and  had  emphasized 
the  community  of  the  German  people  and  re- 
vived a  memory  of  the  ancient  glories.  Kant 
and  Hegel,  Schiller  and  Goethe  provided  the 
ideals,  the  successes  of  Stein  after  the  period  of 
subjection  stirred  the  spirit  of  the  people.  This 
part  of  the  development  of  the  German  nation 
follows  the  general  rule  as  observed  hitherto. 
There  is  first  a  development  of  ideals  in  the 
people  as  a  whole,  then  some  occasion  is  found 
for  sacrifice  in  a  common  cause  to  attain  a  de- 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  123 

sired  end.  This  brought  the  northern  German 
states  into  a  certain  degree  of  unity  of  spirit, 
partly  sealed  in  the  political  organization. 

After  the  Napoleonic  period  we  find  a  new 
tendency  and  a  turning  of  the  ideals  into  a  new 
form.  The  scientific  development  added  new 
glories  to  the  continued  philosophical  and  lit- 
erary activities  and  the  pride  in  race  and 
language  increased  constantly.  Aside  from  the 
theories  of  the  leaders  in  the  abortive  revolu- 
tion of  1848,  the  dominant  note  in  the  speeches 
and  writings  of  the  German  political  theorists 
was  the  supremacy  of  the  state  over  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  necessity  for  a  strong  state  in 
the  struggle  for  existence,  not  as  in  other  parts 
of  the  western  world,  emphasis  upon  the  prin- 
ciples of  freedom  and  popular  rights.  The  state 
was  exalted  as  the  unit  for  survival  and  its  ex- 
altation became  the  aim  of  every  true  citizen. 
This  ideal  seems  to  have  been  as  thoroughly 
rooted  in  the  governing  class  as  were  ever  the 
notions  of  Eousseau  in  the  minds  of  the  French 
populace,  and  it  echoed  in  less  definite  .form 
through  the  lower  classes.  The  state  was  made 
a  super-person  with  an  existence  almost  as  real 
as  that  of  the  individual  person.  It  was  given 
a  divine  warrant  and  a  personal  devotion  was 
developed  towards  it  that  seemed  to  equal  in 
many  cases  the  devotion  towards  immediate 


124    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

relatives  or  to  the  church.  The  series  of  wars 
engineered  by  Bismarck  increased  the  patriotic 
emotion  by  their  successful  outcome.  The  first 
in  1864  and  the  second  in  1866  united  northern 
Germany,  and  the  French  war,  given  the  form 
of  a  defensive  war  by  Bismarck's  cunning, 
united  all  by  the  glow  of  common  deeds  and 
the  participation  in  the  benefits  of  the  indem- 
nity. 

This  development  of  the  German  state  is  im- 
portant for  our  theory  as  it  is  one  of  the  few 
instances  in  modern  times  in  which  a  national 
consciousness  has  been  aroused  on  any  other 
ideal  than  liberty  or  freedom.  With  Germany, 
the  ideal  was  the  aggrandizement  of  the  state 
at  the  expense  of  the  neighbors.  It  was  justi- 
fied by  the  assertion  and  apparently  by  a  gen- 
eral belief  that  the  Germans  were  a  superior 
people,  that  their  state  had  a  superior  civiliza- 
tion and  by  virtue  of  that  superiority  was  en- 
titled to  rule  the  world  of  lesser  states  and  of 
inferior  men  with  inferior  attainments.  This 
was  furthered  by  an  appeal  to  selfishness.  The 
citizens  were  to  be  rewarded,  not  merely  by  the 
pride  they  were  to  feel  in  membership  in  an  all- 
conquering  body,  but  they  were  individually  to 
be  better  fed  and  cared  for,  to  receive  better 
wages  and  thrive  at  the  expense  of  their  weaker 
neighbors.  The  union  was  cemented  by  a  sue- 


NATIONALITY  IN  HISTORY  125 

cessful  war,  but  it  was  a  war  of  aggression 
rather  than  of  defense.  The  war  was  started 
under  the  pretense  of  a  defensive  war  which 
gave  the  government  a  stronger  position  with 
the  people  and  with  the  world  outside.  Once 
started  it  continued  as  a  war  of  aggression,  and 
the  official  political  theory  of  modern  Germany 
recognizes  the  necessity  for  war,  even  an  ag- 
gressive war,  for  the  furtherance  of  the  ends  of 
the  state.  As  we  have  viewed  the  nation  in  the 
light  of  evolutionary  analogies  we  have  found 
hitherto  that  the  instincts  that  were  promi- 
nent in  the  development  were  the  instincts  of 
self-protection,  the  people  were  as  deer  herd- 
ing together  for  common  defense.  The  origin 
of  the  German  nation  represents  the  pack  of 
wolves  gathering  for  a  united  foray.  It  seems 
that  either  will  suffice  for  the  development  of 
a  common  consciousness,  whatever  moral  judg- 
ment we  may  pass  upon  the  method  and  the  re- 
sult. 


CHAPTEK  V 

NATIONALITY    IN    THE    PEOCESS    OF    NATURALIZA- 
TION 

AT  the  end  of  the  first  chapter  we  had  come 
to  the  tentative  conclusion  that  nationality  was 
the  expression  of  a  mental  attitude  and  the 
product  of  experience  based  upon  a  fundamen- 
tal instinct,  that  it  was  acquired  rather  than 
innate.  The  best  evidence  for  this  statement  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  national  affiliations 
change.  A  study  of  the  conditions  of  this 
change  and  of  the  process  itself  should  give  a 
knowledge  of  the  nature  of  the  mental  state 
and  of  many  problems  connected  with  it.  Any 
nation  in  which  the  population  is  compounded 
of  immigrants  from  many  countries  would  fur- 
nish a  laboratory  for  this  problem.  Undoubt- 
edly, the  most  favorable  conditions  for  study 
are  provided  in  the  United  States.  In  no  other 
country  is  the  population  so  mixed,  and  in  no 
other  has  the  process  of  transferring  allegiance 
been  so  long  continued  and  on  the  whole  so 
complete. 

This  method  of  studying  our  problem  is  not 

126 


PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION        127 

altogether  free  from  objections.  In  the  first 
place  the  facts  obtained  are  individual  rather 
than  statistical  in  character,  and  in  consequence 
their  interpretation  is  bound  to  be  open  to  prej- 
udices due  to  the  experiences  and  heredity  of 
the  individual  who  passes  judgment.  The  only 
available  statistics  of  the  sentiments  of  immi- 
grants are  furnished  by  the  number  of  natu- 
ralizations, and  these  are  open  to  many  inter- 
pretations. Some  are  naturalized  for  pecuniary 
and  social  advantages,  some  even  for  the  pro- 
tection it  will  afford  them  in  the  native  land, 
without  undergoing  any  real  change  in  atti- 
tude, any  change  of  heart.  On  the  other  hand 
we  are  often  inclined  to  mistake  a  difference  in 
political  theory  for  differences  in  national  alle- 
giance. Many  foreigners  are  socialists  and  so 
have  a  very  weak  affection  for  any  form  of  gov- 
ernment of  the  present  type,  and  at  the  same 
time  may  be  American  in  national  spirit,  or 
at  least  be  more  nearly  a  member  of  this  com- 
munity than  of  any  other.  Many  of  the  native 
stock  have  accepted  these  theories  without 
thereby  being  eliminated  from  the  American 
nation.  We  must  not  expect  more  of  the  for- 
eign born  than  we  do  of  our  native  citizens. 

Other  prejudices  of  similar  nature  are  likely 
to  becloud  the  interpretation  of  the  facts.  One 
of  the  most  important  is  race  prejudice.  No 


128     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

one  can  count  himself  free  from  this,  because 
when  he  is  deeply  affected  by  it  he  does  not 
regard  it  as  a  prejudice  but  as  an  accepted  fact. 
Through  family  and  community  environment 
every  one  has  a  fondness  for  his  own  race  and 
coupled  with  that  a  firm  belief  in  the  inferior- 
ity of  all  others.  When  present,  this  prevents 
complete  national  amalgamation.  Neverthe- 
less we  do  find  that  race  prejudices  are,  for 
certain  purposes,  overlooked  in  the  nation, — 
that  several  nations  are  composed  of  races,  each 
of  which  looks  with  distaste  upon  the  others 
and  yet  work  together  for  national  ends.  The 
negro  in  America  constitutes  such  an  element, 
the  Jew,  wherever  he  is  found,  another.  In 
the  one  case  the  feeling  that  one  is  inferior  is 
held  by  one  alone,  but  in  the  other  it  is  mutual. 
The  social  prejudices  are  equally  strong  and 
in  many  cases  hold  towards  the  same  peoples 
as  the  racial  prejudices.  Any  of  my  readers 
will  admit  without  question  that  he  dislikes  men 
who  are  too  poor,  or  too  dirty,  or  who  speak 
ungrammatically  and  use  tooth  picks  in  public. 
Many  on  the  other  hand  feel  the  same  distaste 
for  the  men  with  too  much  money  or  those  too 
fastidious  in  dress,  perhaps  even  for  those  too 
fastidious  in  language.  The  Montana  ranch- 
man meets  the  condescension  of  the  eastern 
visitor,  whether  real  or  suspected,  by  calling 


PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION        129 

him  a  dude.  These  objections  to  people  of  dif- 
ferent wealth,  different  education,  manners,  or 
even  of  trades  and  professions,  which  fuse  to 
constitute  social  differences,  give  rise  to  a  com- 
mon emotion  in  which  the  elements  are  not  dis- 
tinguished. In  coming  to  a  decision  whether 
a  foreigner  is  or  is  not  a  member  of  the  Ameri- 
can nation,  it  is  necessary  to  determine  whether 
the  feelings  that  separate  him  from  the  ob- 
server are  the  product  of  his  national  or  of 
his  social  or  of  his  political  attitudes. 

Study  of  the  question  whether  a  particular 
individual  is  an  integral  member  of  a  nation 
may  be  approached  from  two  sides,  from  the 
attitude  of  the  individual  towards  society  and 
from  the  attitude  of  society  towards  him.  Usu- 
ally the  individual  regards  himself  as  a  member 
of  the  nation  before  the  other  members  of  the 
social  group  are  willing  to  accept  him  fully. 
If  one  follows  the  process  of  amalgamation,  one 
finds  that  it  begins  with  a  belief  on  the  part  of 
the  individual  that  he  is  one  with  the  com- 
munity in  which  he  lives  in  aspirations  and  de- 
sires while  he  is  still  looked  upon  by  the  mem- 
bers or  by  many  of  them  with  suspicion  or 
aloofness.  He  is  content  with  a  very  platonic 
affection.  Gradually  he  is  accepted  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  state  for  business  and  political  pur- 
poses, but  is  not  regarded  as  a  social  equal. 


130     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

Slowly  and  grudgingly  lie  may  be  admitted  to 
some  degree  of  social  intimacy,  but  not  to  the 
most  complete  intimacy — he  will  be  invited  to 
the  house  but  marriage  with  a  daughter  would 
be  looked  upon  with  aversion.  In  the  final 
stage,  all  consciousness  of  race  is  lost  and  he  is 
accepted  without  question  as  friend  and  equal. 
For  the  man  himself  and  others  he  is  at  this 
point  a  part  of  the  nation  in  the  full  sense. 

Historically,  it  is  easy  to  trace  the  various 
stages  in  this  development.  Numerous  races 
have  passed  through  it.  The  Irish,  the  German, 
the  Swede,  each  in  his  own  region  has  been  first 
a  complete  outsider,  the  object  of  poorly  con- 
cealed scorn  or  ridicule;  then  he  is  tolerated 
and  his  good  qualities  recognized;  finally  he  is 
completely  accepted  and  intermarries  with  the 
oldest  stocks  without  question  or  hesitation  on 
their  part.  If  one  traces  the  history  of  the  atti- 
tude of  any  small  or  medium  sized  New  Eng- 
land manufacturing  town  to  the  successive 
waves  of  immigration,  these  different  degrees 
of  acceptance  of  each  race  can  be  seen  in  suc- 
ceeding stages.  From  the  comments  of  grand- 
parents and  from  books  one  can  reconstruct  the 
course  of  the  Irish.  In  the  grandmother  of  the 
middle  class,  whose  reaction  was  determined  in 
the  forties,  there  is  still  sufficient  explanation 
of  the  shortcomings  of  a  neighbor  in  the  Irish 


PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION        131 

name.  You  can  expect  nothing  of  a  Murphy. 
This  attitude  is  brought  out  now  only  when 
some  fault  or  misfortune  is  to  be  explained  or 
understood,  but  is  general.  It  is  a  remnant  of 
the  original  attitude  of  half  a  century  ago. 
The  son  shows  signs  of  suspicion  or  distaste; 
the  grandson  can  little  understand  either,  un- 
less the  race  is  also  coupled  with  adherence  to 
a  religion  or  a  political  party  objectionable  to 
the  speaker. 

I  have  myself  seen  somewhat  the  same 
change  in  the  case  of  the  French  Canadian.  As 
a  boy  visiting  a  New  England  factory  town  I 
was  repeatedly  told  by  an  intelligent  native  of 
the  disagreeable  qualities  of  the  French.  They 
were  dirty,  were  given  to  drink,  constituted  for 
some  not  well  defined  reason  a  danger  that 
made  it  necessary  to  shun  them  for  one 's  moral 
and  physical  salvation.  They  were  represented 
as  coming  in  swarma-  to  this  country,  where 
large  families  all  worked  together  in  the  mills, 
lived  in  squalor  and  saved  money  enough  to  go 
back  home  and  buy  a  farm.  As  in  most  in- 
stances of  race  prejudice  the  faults  were 
hinted  at  rather  than  specified,  and  the  very 
vagueness  of  the  statements  added  to  the  dis- 
taste produced.  I  remember  that  it  was  said  of 
a  close  fisted,  aggressive  native  real  estate  spec- 
ulator that  when  he  wanted  to  buy  a  piece  of 


132    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

property  lie  made  the  owner  an  offer  and  if  it 
was  not  accepted  he  would  buy  a  house  on 
either  side,  fill  it  with  French  and  in  the  expres- 
sive colloquialism  of  my  informant  "stink  him 
out." 

After  twenty  years'  absence  I  happened  to 
make  some  comment  to  this  same  man  about  the 
ways  of  the  French,  quoting  as  literally  as  I 
could  remember  them  his  own  statements  of  an 
earlier  visit  and  was  surprised  to  have  him 
deny  that  they  had  any  of  the  qualities  as- 
signed. They  were  a  sober,  clean,  industrious 
people,  in  fact  were  altogether  American.  I 
found  that  the  natives  were  mixing  with  them 
on  terms  of  equality  and  with  no  repugnance 
towards  their  manners  or  morals.  That  the 
change  had  not  been  altogether  in  the  habits  of 
the  French  became  clear  when  I  talked  with 
men  who  had  had  more  intimate  dealings  with 
them  in  the  earlier  period.  A  member  of  the 
same  man's  family,  who  had  as  employment 
manager  to  look  up  the  reasons  for  absence 
from  work  in  the  homes  of  the  operatives,  re- 
ported that  they  had  always  been  neat  and  law 
abiding,  a  statement  that  harmonizes  with  what 
one  knows  of  their  life  in  their  home  environ- 
ment. "When  the  new  immigrants  are  regarded 
as  outsiders  all  their  peculiarities  are  exag- 
gerated, the  habits  of  the  few  are  ascribed  to 


PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION        133 

all,  and  many  traits  are  attributed  to  them 
which  have  absolutely  no  foundation.  When 
accepted,  the  estimate  becomes  more  just.  The 
French  Canadian  has  been  accepted  as  the  Irish 
before  him,  and  now  the  Greek  and  the  southern 
Slav  is  taking  his  place  as  the  outsider,  the 
individual  scarcely  human. 

You  will  find  that  the  man  who  has  this 
prejudice,  as  who  has  not,  will  find  a  reason 
for  it  in  the  inferiority  of  the  race  of  the  new 
and  unaccepted  group.  He  will  tell  you  that 
the  earlier  Irish  knew  the  language,  are  of  our 
own  stock.  The  French  lived  in  a  democracy 
before  they  came  into  this  country  and  so  on 
throughout  the  list.  There  may  be  much  or  lit- 
tle of  fact  in  these  statements,  but  they  suffice 
to  satisfy  the  prejudice  and  that  is  all  that  is 
needed.  The  enthusiast  for  the  community  of 
mankind  assures  you  that  they  will  amalgamate 
as  have  their  predecessors;  the  cynic  sees  in 
them,  as  did  his  predecessor  of  three  quarters 
of  a  century  ago  in  the  Irish,  a  menace  to  the 
purity  of  the  race  and  to  our  free  institutions. 

It  may  be  objected  to  this  statement  that 
newer  arrivals  have  amalgamated  only  with  the 
lower  classes,  that  these  people  have  not  been 
admitted  into  the  highest  circles,  but  only  into 
the  fellowship  of  the  middle  class.  Their  names 
do  not  appear  in  the  list  of  those  present  at  im- 


134    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

portant  social  gatherings  in  the  big  cities.  Ad- 
mit this  and  you  need  say  only  that  the  list 
does  not  include  members  of  the  native  stock 
of  similar  wealth  and  opportunities.  Not  in- 
frequently this  list  is  based  on  descent  and  on 
the  time  that  the  family  has  been  a  resident. 
They  are  accepted  socially  by  individuals  whom 
they  know  in  trade  and  shop.  Men  of  the  race 
of  special  training,  lawyers  and  physicians,  are 
accepted  by  the  native  stock  and  marriage  with 
them  is  not  looked  on  askance  by  the  native 
group.  The  exceptional  man  who  gains  wealth 
and  education  does  appear  in  all  but  the  most 
exclusive  homes  and  on  the  most  intimate  occa- 
sions in  the  most  select  circles. 

The  process  of  amalgamation  on  the  part  of 
the  immigrants  follows  much  the  same  course. 
Most  of  those  admitted  are  fleeing  from  some- 
thing worse,  and,  hard  as  their  lot  may  be  here, 
they  have  suffered  and  escaped  from  a  harder. 
They  come  ready  to  be  assimilated  and  thank- 
ful to  be  accepted  as  a  part  of  the  community, 
even  a  humble  part.  That  on  the  whole  they 
become  amalgamated  in  spirit  cannot,  I  think, 
be  denied  in  spite  of  a  few  exceptions  and  in 
spite  of  the  long  time  required  in  many  cases. 
For  the  most  part  they  are  more  concerned 
with  being  accepted  into  the  nation  and  its  life 
than  with  the  question  of  its  advantages.  Only 


PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION         i35 

as  they  obtain  a  place  and  know  more  of  the 
life  do  they  become  critical  of  American  ideals 
or  of  American  practices.  Even  then  they  are 
likely  to  take  the  avowed  political  ideals  as  a 
basis  for  the  criticism  of  life  and  practice  as 
they  actually  find  it.  Several  recent  critics 
among  the  foreigners  and  even  some  native 
Americans  claim  that  the  ideals  of  American- 
ism persist  only  among  the  recent  immigrants, 
while  the  native  stock  is  devoted  to  the  worship 
of  mammon  and  lost  in  the  marshes  of  racial 
prejudice  and  intolerance. 

What  it  is  that  makes  an  individual  change 
his  allegiance  can  be  determined  in  a  measure 
from  a  study  of  the  reports  available  in  the 
records  of  the  individuals  who  have  changed, 
and  of  the  influences  which  statistics  and  ob- 
servations show  to  produce  the  change.  First, 
one  must  assume  that  there  is  the  social  instinct 
common  to  all  men.  This  has  identified  the 
individual  in  emotion  and  ideal  with  his  older 
community.  One  may  readily  distinguish  two 
groups  of  individuals  in  this  respect.  The  man 
of  education  or  position  or  both  is  moved 
largely  by  ideals.  He  has  not  infrequently 
accepted  the  ideals  of  the  nation  before,  he 
comes  and  if  then  he  finds  only  a  moderately 
friendly  reception  from  the  citizens  he  is  likely 
to  change  his  allegiance  fully  by  such  slow  de- 


136     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

grees  that  he  will  hardly  know  himself  when  or 
how  the  process  takes  place.  As  one  reads  the 
*  *  Eeminiscences  "  of  Carl  Schurz,  for  example, 
one  discovers  little  or  nothing-  of  the  forces  at 
•work  in  the  change  because  apparently  he  ac- 
cepts citizenship  and  is  accepted  altogether 
without  question.  He  passes  from  the  distin- 
guished guest  to  the  respected  citizen  with  prac- 
tically no  intermediate  stage.  This  is  partly 
due,  no  doubt,  to  the  fact  that  he  at  once  be- 
comes an  active  worker  against  slavery  in  com- 
mon with  a  large  number  of  older  residents.  He 
finds  that  he  holds  ideals  in  common  with  them 
and  fights  in  a  single  cause. 

Opposed  to  this,  one  may  see  at  times  an  edu- 
cated man  who  looks  at  the  new  always  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  old  civilization,  who  ac- 
cepts the  customs  and  values  of  his  former  resi- 
dence as  standard  and  passes  upon  all  things 
and  peoples  in  terms  of  them.  Such  a  man 
will  remain  essentially  a  foreigner  no  matter 
how  long  he  may  live  in  the  community.  It 
is  true  that  when  he  returns  to  the  country  of 
his  birth  he  may  find  that  it  is  as  far  different 
in  reality  from  what  he  had  pictured  it  in  his 
memory  as  is  the  new.  In  that  case  our  carp- 
ing critic  either  returns  more  ready  to  change 
his  allegiance  or  remains  without  definite  affili- 
ations in  spirit  with  either  country.  What  is 


PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION        137 

lacking  here  is  usually  the  willingness  to  accept 
the  ideals  of  the  new  community  or  inability 
to  work  in  harmony  with  its  citizens  for  a  com- 
mon cause.  One  can  find  numerous  examples 
of  each  class  among  educated  foreigners  resi- 
dent for  longer  or  shorter  periods  among  us. 
The  difference  between  them  is  partly  in  age, 
the  one  usually  younger  and  more  tractable, 
the  other  older  and  more  fixed  in  standards; 
and  is  partly  personal.  The  one  is  willing  to 
learn,  the  other  assured,  perhaps  even  con- 
ceited, in  his  own  opinion.  On  the  whole,  how- 
ever, a  man  of  this  training  who  has  united 
with  a  group  of  the  native  born  in  the  pushing 
of  some  ideal,  who  makes  common  cause  on  any 
point  with  the  citizens  of  the  community, 
quickly  becomes  in  essentials  a  true  member  of 
the  nation.  On  certain  points  he  is  bound  to 
retain  his  old  beliefs,  to  be  a  critic  rather  than 
a  partisan  of  the  new  country.  In  this  he  is, 
of  course,  in  no  different  position  from  any  in- 
telligent citizen.  One  can  decide  whether  he 
has  or  has  not  changed  his  allegiance  from  his 
whole  attitude  rather  than  from  his  attitude  on 
one  point  alone. 

The  factors  and  forces  that  make  for  the 
naturalization  and  nationalization  of  the  un- 
educated or  unintelligent  mass  are  of  a  differ- 
ent nature.  These  must  always  be  the  great 


138     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

majority  and  constitute  at  once  the  greatest 
problem  for  the  nation  and  the  most  interest- 
ing material  for  investigation  on  the  nature  of 
the  feeling  of  nationality.  The  intelligent  men 
are  few  and  are  moved  in  greater  part  by 
rational  considerations.  The  real  reasons  for 
their  becoming  citizens  are  more  nearly  the 
reasons  alleged.  At  least  they  are  more  open 
to  observation  and  more  capable  of  reporting 
than  are  the  great  mass.  The  latter  constitute 
the  real  nation.  In  them  the  instinctive  and 
habitual  processes  run  their  course  less  influ- 
enced by  the  pale  cast  of  thought.  "We  may 
study  in  them  the  forces  that  are  really  effec- 
tive rather  than  those  the  theorist  thinks  should 
work. 

Before  discussing  the  influences  that  produce 
the  assimilation  of  immigrants,  it  may  be  well 
to  admit  that  there  is  a  question  as  to  how  far 
that  assimilation  is  really  possible  among  the 
lowest  classes  and  those  who  live  together  in 
the  poorer  neighborhoods  in  great  cities,  in 
isolated  rural  communities,  or  in  the  colonies 
of  unskilled  or  partly  skilled  laborers  in  vil- 
lages devoted  to  a  single  industry.  Undoubt- 
edly we  can  find  striking  instances  of  complete 
amalgamation  under  the  most  unfavorable  of 
these  conditions.  It  is  also  true  that  most  of 
the  members  of  families  in  the  third  generation 


PKOCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION        139 

are  really  assimilated  and  in  many  cases  are 
not  to  be  distinguished  from  descendants  of 
first  settlers  of  English  stock.  The  excep- 
tions are  to  be  found  in  the  relatively  few  iso- 
lated communities  which  have  been  trans- 
planted as  a  whole  from  the  old  country,  and 
have  retained  its  language  and  customs. 

In  estimating  the  relative  importance  of  the 
different  influences,  one  may  probably  put  first 
the  desire  for  the  better  social  standing  and 
higher  degree  of  physical  comfort  enjoyed  by 
the  native.  That  the  superiority  of  wealth  and 
ordinarily  of  education  is  an  important  factor 
in  inducing  the  amalgamation,  becomes  evident 
if  one  thinks  what  the  probable  course  would  be 
were  the  immigrant  to  go  among  an  inferior 
people.  It  has  been  the  history  of  the  settle- 
ment of  countries  inhabited  by  inferior  races 
that  they  were  merely  driven  out  or  extermi- 
nated. Where  the  native  and  immigrant  are 
more  nearly  on  a  level  or  the  natives  are  strong 
enough  to  hold  their  own,  as  in  China  and  in 
certain  of  the  more  backward  Latin  American 
countries,  either  the  races  live  entirely  apart 
or  the  two  fuse  into  a  new  race  to  which  each 
contributes  its  share. 

Many  of  the  altruistic  social  workers  and 
Zimmern  among  the  theorists  have  criticized 
the  American  people  for  assumption  of  superi- 


140     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

ority  and  for  their  contempt  of  the  foreigner. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  it  has  no  defense  on 
theoretical  or  moral  grounds.  One  must  admit 
that  the  American  is  full  of  conceit  as  to  his 
superiority  and  that  the  conceit  is  largely  based 
on  ignorance.  In  every  city  there  are  undoubt- 
edly many  men  who  are  passed  by  with  con- 
tempt, or  more  likely  never  noticed  at  all,  who, 
by  their  training  and  ability,  are  entitled  to  a 
high  place  in  literature  or  art  or  political 
theory.  This  attitude  is  taken  not  by  the 
superior  Americans  but  by  the  ordinary  man, 
very  much  inferior  in  every  respect  to  the  men 
he  is  looking  down  upon.  Much  as  we  may 
deprecate  the  unfairness  of  the  American  in 
this  respect  and  lament  the  opportunities  that 
he  misses  on  account  of  it,  we  must  still  grant 
that  by  it  the  process  of  naturalization  is  hast- 
ened. The  unreasoning  race  prejudice  which 
shows  itself  in  repugnance  toward  the  strange 
speech,  customs,  and  standards  of  the  immi- 
grant is  one  of  the  strongest  forces  in  com- 
pelling him  to  be  absorbed.  How  the  opposite 
course  of  accepting  all  as  equals,  with  manners 
and  clothing  and  standards  that  were  merely 
different  but  just  as  good,  would  work,  we  can- 
not say  because  it  has  never  been  tried.  Prob- 
ably one  would  find  that  if  the  newcomer  was 
not  repressed  he  would  dominate  and  soon 


PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION        141 

oppress.  At  the  best  he  would  not  be  assimi- 
lated. Whatever  its  ethical  value,  even  its  logi- 
cal truth,  race  prejudice  is  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant forces  in  the  amalgamation  of  the 
stranger. 

It  is,  of  course,  granted  that  the  more  inde- 
pendent minds  among  the  newcomers  see  the 
injustice  of  the  native  attitude,  the  more  self- 
reliant  resent  it.  The  prejudice  accounts  in 
part  for  the  strong  socialistic  and  anti-govern- 
mental political  beliefs  among  them.  The  great 
majority,  however,  feel  the  steady  pressure  of 
implied  inferiority  that  meets  them  on  every 
side  and  in  every  field.  They  respond  to  it 
both  in  essentials  and  non-essentials.  Their 
costume  may  be  affected  first.  The  native 
dress  is  discarded  as  soon  as  possible.  The 
women  are  ashamed  to  be  seen  without  a  hat; 
the  native  costume,  however  attractive  in  itself, 
soon  becomes  a  mark  of  inferiority  and  a  mat- 
ter of  reproach.  All  of  the  external  manners 
and  customs  yield  in  the  same  way.  The 
methods  of  salutation,  habits  in  ^  connection 
with  the  toilet  and  table  are  gradually  given 
up  or  modified  to  meet  the  prevailing  American 
usage. 

Many  of  these  are  superficial  and  unimpor- 
tant in  themselves  and  serve  only  to  indicate 
the  way  in  which  the  assumed  superiority  of  the 


142    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

new  compels  the  change  in  old  customs.  In  the 
more  essential  respects  the  same  forces  are  at 
work.  Between  manners  and  hygiene  there  is 
a  close  relation.  The  reason  for  abandoning 
overcrowding  in  sleeping  quarters,  unhygienic 
food  and  personal  habits  is  usually  the  social 
disrepute  in  which  they  stand  rather  than  any 
rational  consideration.  To  be  able  to  receive 
friends  in  a  room  not  used  as  a  bed  room,  to 
say  that  the  wife  does  not  keep  boarders,  is  a 
mark  of  social  distinction,  or  a  plea  for  social 
recognition  quite  as  frequently  as  it  is  an  ac- 
ceptance of  rational  hygiene  or  a  consideration 
of  the  well-being  of  the  wife.  Even  the  pos- 
session of  a  bath  room  is  frequently,  among 
the  lower  circles,  more  a  mark  of  social  superi- 
ority than  a  means  of  cleanliness.  When  the 
change,  whatever  its  nature,  has  been  intro- 
duced as  means  for  the  attainment  of  social 
distinction,  habits  develop  that  have  a  hygienic 
value.  Cleanliness  in  its  different  forms  be- 
comes essential  to  comfort  and  cannot  be  easily 
dispensed  with. 

Frequently  the  change  has  been  worked  with 
slight  recognition  on  the  part  of  the  individual. 
He  may  still  look  back  with  fondness  to  the 
good  old  ways.  It  is  only  when  he  tries  a  re- 
turn to  the  old  that  he  appreciates  his  change 
and  the  advantages  of  the  new.  I  remember  a 


PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION        143 

relatively  young  Greek  at  Patras,  who  had  been 
recalled  for  service  during  the  Turkish  war 
and  had  gone  .back  to  the  shepherd's  life  of  his 
parents  while  waiting  for  induction.  Before 
his  return  he  had  looked  back  upon  the  shep- 
herd's life  as  idyllic,  even  as  ideal.  When  he 
experienced  it,  the  hardships,  particularly  the 
dirt,  were  insufferable.  After  a  few  weeks  he 
gave  up  the  life  and  came  to  Patras  and  worked 
as  porter  about  a  hotel.  Even  there  he  could 
not  endure  his  accommodations  but  rented  a 
room  at  his  own  expense  to  obtain  the  cleanli- 
ness that  had  become  essential  to  him.  Once 
the  standard  of  comfort  has  been  raised  by  the 
social  forces,  the  new  habits  and  the  emotions 
that  develop  with  them  prevent  slipping  back 
to  the  lower  level. 

The  changes  in  language  show  the  influence 
either  as  cause  or  effect  of  the  same  forces. 
Here  again  the  vices  or  incapacities  of  the  Eng- 
lish race  have  what  we  may  regard  as  a  bene- 
ficial effect.  Notoriously  the  Englishman  is  a 
bad  linguist — it  is  with  difficulty  that  he  learns 
another  language.  Furthermore  he  has  no  de- 
sire to  learn  other  tongues  and  is  inclined  to 
regard  them  as  hardly  worth  while,  if  they  are 
not  beneath  him.  In  consequence,  wherever  he 
goes  he  refuses  or  is  not  able  to  learn  the 
language,  and  the  other  more  competent  lin- 


144     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

guists  and  more  adaptable  individuals  learn 
his.  The  German,  on  the  contrary,  is  usually 
better  trained  in  languages,  is  keen  to  acquire 
a  new  one,  and,  in  consequence,  adopts  the 
speech  of  the  new  home  and  gradually  loses 
his  own.  The  American  may  have  more 
competence  than  the  Englishman  in  learning 
the  languages  of  others,  but  he  is  certainly  as 
little  able  to  appreciate  the  beauties  or  the  ad- 
vantages of  the  immigrant's  tongue.  Ordi- 
narily he  refuses  to  learn  and  in  addition  he 
assumes  an  attitude  of  superiority  to  the  man 
who  speaks  another  tongue  or  at  least  towards 
the  man  who  cannot  speak  English.  He  is  in- 
clined, even,  to  measure  the  general  intelligence 
of  a  man  by  the  accuracy  with  which  he  speaks 
English.  One  who  speaks  it  brokenly  is  by  the 
average  untutored  American  at  once  assigned 
to  an  inferior  social  position. 

While  language  may  not  be  essential  to  be- 
longing to  a  nation,  the  individual  who  speaks 
the  language  of  the  race  is  more  likely  to  know 
and  to  accept  the  ideals  of  the  race  than  the 
individual  who  does  not.  He  is  also  much  more 
open  to  the  manifold  suggestions  on  all  points 
that  serve  to  mold  the  mass  of  newcomers  in 
the  unessentials  as  well  as  in  the  essentials.  To 
read  the  newspapers,  to  understand  political 
addresses  and  on  occasion  to  make  them  one's 


PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION        145 

self,  are  important  elements  in  becoming  a 
member  of  a  nation.  To  know  the  literature 
gives  one  a  point  of  contact  with  other  mem- 
bers of  the  same  group,  stimulates  emotions  to 
be  shared  in  common  with  them,  and  gradually 
gives  a  pleasant  tone  that  will  fuse  with  other 
feelings  aroused  by  the  thought  of  the  nation 
or  of  the  state.  One  can  become  one  in  spirit 
with  the  group  only  by  knowing  what  the  other 
members  are  thinking  and  learning,  and  this  is 
impossible  or  at  least  very  difficult  unless  one 
knows  the  language. 

The  other  strong  influence  is  the  school. 
Most  of  the  forces  we  have  mentioned  operate 
much  more  effectively  upon  the  child  than  upon 
the  adult.  In  the  school  the  child  feels  them 
all  with  greatest  force.  Here  he  is  forced  to 
learn  the  language,  here  he  receives  his  instruc- 
tion in  hygiene  and  becomes  aware  of  the  habits 
and  manners  of  the  native  morei  intimately 
than  his  parents  may  ever  do  unless  they  be- 
come servants  in  the  native  homes.  Here,  too, 
the  influence  of  race  prejudice  is  felt  most  fully, 
even  most  brutally.  The  boy  has  no  respect  for 
the  feelings  of  others  and  has  no  doubts  about 
the  superiority'of  the  ways  of  his  elders.  Even 
in  neighborhoods  where  newcomers  from  one 
race  are  present  in  large  numbers  and  possess 
considerable  wealth,  we  find  the  children 


ashamed  to  speak  the  language  of  their  parents 
and  thus  gradually  forgetting  it.  In  many 
cases  I  have  heard  a  college  student  regretting 
that  he  failed  to  take  advantage  of  the  oppor- 
tunity to  learn  the  speech  of  his  parents  be- 
cause as  a  child  he  was  ashamed  to  be  heard 
speaking  it.  The  cruelty  with  which  children 
enforce  the  dictates  of  fashion  upon  members 
of  their  own  race  is  much  increased  when  the 
victim  is  an  alien.  When  the  foreigners  are 
few  in  number  the  effect  is  overpowering  and 
rapid.  Even  in  schools  where,  as  in  many 
cities,  the  number  of  foreign  children  is  large  in 
proportion,  the  effect  is  still  seen.  It  is  weak- 
est where  most  of  the  children  are  of  one  for- 
eign nationality.  If  several  nationalities  are 
represented  so  that  the  different  prejudices 
nullify  each  other,  the  American  comes  in  to 
tip  the  beam  and  dominates  all. 

The  Americanization  of  the  child  is  effective 
not  only  for  the  next  generation,  but  also  works 
back  upon  the  parents.  The  old  people  learn 
from  their  children  and  gradually  accept  the 
leading  of  the  children.  That  this  is  true  is 
emphasized  by  the  reports  of  most  social  work- 
ers that  the  parent  often  loses  his  natural  con- 
trol over  the  child  in  ways  that  are  unfortunate. 
The  father  speaks  only  the  language  that  the 
child  has  learned  to  disdain,  the  mother  wears 


PEOCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION         147 

clothes  that  mark  the  "dago"  or  "wop,"  the 
manners  of  both  are  uncouth  from  the  child's 
newly  acquired  standards.  The  teaching  of  the 
parents  on  all  points  is  similarly  open  to  suspi- 
cion. Where  the  child  is  exposed  to  tempta- 
tions the  parental  admonitions  on  points  of 
morals  are  regarded  as  of  no  more  value  than 
their  opinions  on  matters  of  dress  or  speech, 
and  morals  suffer.  The  new  environment  ex- 
erts its  influence  for  bad  as  well  as  for  good. 
Its  strength  is  undoubted.  The  assimilation  of 
the  parent  is  frequently  accomplished  through 
the  child. 

In  addition  to  the  changes  in  ideals  and  other 
purely  emotional  respects  it  seems  that  even 
the  physical  and  mental  characteristics  undergo 
a  change  as  an  individual  moves  from  one  coun- 
try to  another.  To  make  an  American  of  an 
immigrant  may  mean,  if  this  be  true,  not 
merely  that  he  changes  his  likes  and  dislikes 
and  his  habits  of  living  and  thinking,  but  that 
he  changes  his  physical  characters  and  his  men- 
tal capacity.  Proof  of  this  statement  requires 
much  longer  observation  and  more  accurate 
measurement  than  has  been  possible  so  far.  A 
few  bits  of  evidence  are  accumulating  in  its 
favor.  On  the  physical  side  we  have  already 
mentioned  the  changes  that  have  taken  place  in 
the  Germans  who  settled  in  the  Caucasus.  One 


148     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OP  NATIONALITY 

can  easily  note  the  changes  that  are  found  in 
the  second  generation  of  many  races  that  keep 
pure  in  the  United  States.  Men  of  both  Ger- 
man and  English  stock  are  taller  and  in  many 
cases  more  lithe  than  were  their  progenitors. 
These  may  easily  be  ascribed  to  better  food  and 
a  more  active  life,  as  we  find  a  similar  change 
in  the  native  stock  as  a  family  moves  from  the 
city  to  the  country  or  from  the  east  to  the 
West.  Most  striking  evidence  for  the  physical 
change  is  Boas's1  series  of  measurements  of 
the  shape  of  the  head  in  immigrant  parent  and 
native  born  child.  He  finds  that  the  shape  of 
the  head  tends  to  approach  the  average  Ameri- 
can head,  that  the  child  of  the  broad  headed 
(brachy cephalic)  Eussian  Jew  becomes  mark- 
edly longer  (more  dolichocephalic)  in  a  single 
generation,  while  the  head  of  the  child  of  the 
long-headed  Sicilian  is  broader  than  that  of  his 
parent.  Why  these  changes  take  place  cannot 
be  stated  at  present.  Boas  himself  makes  no 
explanation.  Their  main  significance  is  to  in- 
dicate that  even  the  physical  characteristics  of 
the  immigrants  may  be  changed.  If  the  process 
continues  there  is  a  possibility  that  the  new 
will  not  be  distinguishable  from  the  old  even  in 
stature  and  formation  of  the  head. 

*F.  Boas:     "Changes  in  Bodily  Form  of  Descendants  of  Im- 
migrants."    Government  Printing  Office.     1910. 


PKOCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION         149 

The  change  in  the  mental  status  of  the  immi- 
grant after  a  few  years  has  often  been  re- 
marked. Carl  Schurz  2  asserted  that  the  Euro- 
pean peasant  assumed  in  America  an  attitude 
of  independence  that  he  never  would  have  at- 
tained in  his  home  environment.  The  change 
he  ascribed  to  the  practice  in  self-government 
acquired  here.  Miss  Balch,  in  her  study  of  the 
Slavonic  immigration,  asserts  that  the  returned 
immigrant  can  be  easily  detected  in  his  Euro- 
pean home  by  his  carriage  and  his  greater  in- 
dependence of  thought  and  his  interest  in 
education.  The  returned  Greeks  who  fought 
in  the  Balkan  war  had  the  reputation  of  being 
much  better  soldiers  in  every  way  than  their 
fellows  from  the  same  province.  They  had 
more  initiative,  learned  much  more  quickly, 
were  in  every  way  more  intelligent.  I  was 
struck,  as  I  chanced  to  be  in  Athens  at  the  time, 
to  see  a  Greek  I  had  met  on  the  boat,  who  had 
been  unusually  successful  in  America,  walking 
with  his  brother  who  had  come  up  to  the  city 
with  him  to  enlist.  The  one  had  all  the  marks, 
the  bearing,  the  garments  of  the  better  type  of 
American  business  man.  The  brother  was  un- 
couth, awkward,  a  typical  peasant,  obviously 
what  his  brother  had  been  a  dozen  years  before. 

"Carl  Schurz:     "Reminiscences,"  vol.  2,  p.  77. 


150     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

This  is  typical  of  the  change  that  is  wrought 
by  a  few  years'  residence  in  America. 

The  results  of  measurements  that  have  been 
made  recently  of  the  mental  capacity  of  groups 
of  immigrants,  are  in  certain  respects  more 
definite  than  these  general  observations.  The 
Binet  tests  were  applied  for  three  years  to  the 
Russian  Jews  and  Italians  who  entered  New 
York.3  These  showed  that  at  least  40  per  cent 
of  the  adults  of  each  race  were  below  normal 
intelligence,  had  a  mental  capacity  of  no  more 
than  the  equivalent  of  the  American  child  of 
ten.  This  low  state  of  intelligence  is  not  trans- 
mitted to  the  offspring  as  measurements  of 
their  children  in  the  schools  show  no  such 
prevalence  of  mental  defectiveness.  Nor  is  it 
characteristic  of  the  younger  members  of  a  first 
generation  after  a  few  years '  residence  in  this 
country,  if  one  may  judge  from  their  success 
in  business  and  in  other  pursuits.  If  low  in- 
telligence were  an  innate  character,  we  would 
expect  it  to  appear  in  the  children.  As  it  is, 
we  must  assume  that  it  is  merely  an  acquired 
characteristic.  One  may  venture  the  hypothe- 
sis that  the  narrow  life  of  the  peasants  or  lower 
grades  of  laborers  in  the  home  country  which 
gives  no  opportunity  for  initiative  results  in 

"H.    H.    Goddard:    "Mental    Tests    and    the    Immigrant." 
Journal  of  Delinquency,  vol.  2,  p.  243. 


151 

the  formation  of  habits  of  accepting  everything 
on  authority  and  so  of  not  thinking,  and  that 
these  habits  have  an  injurious  effect  upon  what 
seem  to  be  the  fundamental  mental  character- 
istics. 

This  fact  of  the  low  intelligence  of  the  immi- 
grant would  at  least  eliminate  the  hypothesis 
sometimes  offered  as  an  explanation  that  the 
emigrants  are  superior  individuals,  selected  by 
their  intelligence  and  initiative  for  the  venture 
to  the  unknown  land  across  the  sea.  That  the 
best  emigrate  might  be  doubted  on  a  priori 
consideration  as  well.  To  be  sure,  it  requires 
initiative  to  break  home  ties  and  start  alone. 
On  the  other  hand  the  adventure  appeals  to 
the  individuals  who  are  not  too  prosperous  and 
contented  with  their  lot  in  the  home  environ- 
ment. The  man  who  has  succeeded  is  not  likely 
to  make  the  break  unless  he  is  the  victim  of 
political  misfortune  or  of  a  wandering,  venture- 
some disposition.  It  is  the  man  who  has  not 
quite  found  his  place  and  so  probably  the  man 
of  less  than  the  average  intelligence  or  adapta- 
bility who  is  forced  to  emigrate.  In  these  days 
of  assisted  immigration,  when  the  large  major- 
ity come  on  funds  sent  from  relatives  already 
established  in  America,  when,  too,  the  steam- 
ship agents  are  soliciting  immigrants  and  sup- 
plying through  tickets  from  the  village  in  Eu- 


152     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

rope  to  the  destination  in  America,  it  fre- 
quently requires  more  strength,  of  character  to 
resist  than  to  yield  to  their  entreaties.  These 
forces  would  not  necessarily  select  the  worst 
for  emigration  but  they  would  add  to  the  best 
a  large  number  of  the  less  intelligent,  and  make 
it  probable  that  the  emigrants  would  be  not 
much  above  the  average  of  their  community. 

The  elements  we  have  been  enumerating 
might  be  regarded  as  unessential,  in  many 
ways  they  are  symbolic  of  the  fundamental 
changes  rather  than  themselves  important.  A 
woman  may  be  just  as  good  an  American  when 
she  wears  a  shawl  as  when  she  wears  a  hat, 
but  when  she  is  sufficiently  affected  by  the  new 
environment  to  feel  uncomfortable  in  the  shawl, 
she  and  her  family  are  likely  to  appreciate  the 
forces  of  American  society  in  other  ways  as 
well.  And  in  associating  American  life  with 
cleanliness  and  a  high  standard  of  living  the 
immigrant  is  accepting  ideals  that  may  be  more 
effective  in  creating  an  allegiance  to  the  coun- 
try of  his  new  residence  than  would  acceptance 
of  the  principles  embodied  in  the  Declaration 
of  Independence. 

But  the  work  of  transformation  does  not  or- 
dinarily stop  with  a  change  in  the  habits  of  the 
toilet  or  in  the  standards  of  living.  The  formal 
political  beliefs  of  the  United  States  are  suffi- 


PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION         153 

ciently  in  harmony  with  the  general  likes  and 
beliefs  to  make  them  acceptable  to  all,  no  mat- 
ter whence  they  may  come.  The  questions 
raised  are  rather  of  the  sincerity  with  which 
they  may  be  applied,  than  of  the  principles 
themselves.  Our  immigrants  may  be  socialists 
or  belong  to  other  anti-government  groups  in 
reaction  against  the  overbearing  treatment  of 
their  employers  or  in  continuance  of  home 
teachings  or  the  preaching  of  the  American 
agitator,  but  they  are  all  willing  to  accept  the 
principles  of  the  Constitution.  It  may  well  be 
questioned  whether  a  larger  percentage  of  them 
will  be  found  in  the  socialist  group  than  one 
would  find  among  native  born  Americans  of  the 
same  social  and  financial  standing.  As  they  in- 
crease in  wealth  the  number  of  socialists  among 
them  certainly  diminishes.  The  list  of  leaders 
among  our  most  radical  organization,  the  I. 
W.  W.,  contains  fewer  foreign  names  than  the 
proportion  of  the  foreign  population  among  the 
poorest  paid  groups  would  lead  one  to  expect. 
As  one  talks  casually  with  the  foreigner  of 
the  working  class,  one  finds  a  wealth  of  political 
ideas  that  are  in  harmony  with  the  best  in 
American  political  theory.  During  the  first 
summer  of  the  war,  I  remember  hearing  re- 
peated expressions  from  Scandinavian  and 
southern  Slav  sheep  herders  in  Wyoming  of 


154    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

the  opinion  that  the  end  of  the  war  would  bring 
a  United  States  of  Europe.  I  could  not  trace 
the  idea  to  any  common  source,  and  individuals 
who  spoke  it  were  sufficiently  far  apart  to  make 
a  common  source  unlikely.  In  all  conversation 
with  men  who  would  be  regarded  at  first  sight 
as  still  foreigners,  one  finds  an  objection  to 
monarchies  as  such  and  a  preference  for  repub- 
lican or  democratic  institutions  which,  whether 
acquired  during  residence  here  or  in  Europe, 
argues  well  for  respect  and  affection  for  our 
form  of  government  and  political  ideals.  Will- 
ingness to  count  as  part  of  the  social  or  na- 
tional group  is  much  more  important. 

How  far  changes  in  ideals  of  a  social  sort, 
such  as  we  have  been  enumerating,  indicate 
or  prove  a  change  in  the  fundamental  emotional 
attitude  that  would  have  political  significance, 
is  a  problem  of  the  utmost  importance.  At 
present  its  solution  requires  detailed  knowl- 
edge of  motives  that  neither  the  individuals 
themselves  nor  careful  observers  can  supply. 
Opinions  differ  widely.  Pessimists  insist  that 
the  much  vaunted  "melting  pot"  has  proved 
incapable  of  fusing  the  different  national  ele- 
ments into  a  homogeneous  mixture,  a  single 
product  that  may  be  called  American.  Enthu- 
siasts for  the  effects  of  life  in  America,  on  the 
other  hand,  find  evidence  from  approximately 


the  same  facts  for  a  belief  that  Americaniza- 
tion is  as  complete  as  could  be  expected,  even, 
as  has  been  said,  that  the  new  citizens  may  be 
more  American  than  the  Americans  themselves. 
The  differences  seem  to  depend  in  part  upon 
the  prejudices  of  the  authorities,  in  part  upon 
the  definition  of  Americanism  or  of  nationality 
in  general,  probably  in  greater  part  upon  the 
experience  of  the  individual  who  passes  the 
judgment. 

An  objective  measure  of  the  transfer  of  af- 
fection is  difficult  to  obtain.  Naturalization  is 
a  legal  .rite  and  may  be  unaccompanied  by  the 
change  of  heart  in  which  we  are  interested.  It 
is  generally  accepted,  as  was  said  earlier  in 
the  chapter,  that  an  alien  not  infrequently 
makes  application  for  citizenship  for  the  social 
or  pecuniary  rewards  that  go  with  it.  On  the 
other  hand  many  who  are  thoroughly  American 
in  spirit  neglect  to  take  the  legal  steps  and 
may  even  be  accepted  as  citizens  and  vote  for 
many  years  without  realizing  that  the  legal 
form  has  not  been  complied  with.  No  single 
test  is  altogether  adequate.  Between  two  races 
or  two  civilizations  likes  and  dislikes  are  always 
of  parts  and  of  phases,  not  of  wholes.  One 
may  like  the  national  ideals  and  dislike  their 
application  or  the  failure  to  realize  them  in 
action.  One  may  be  fascinated  by  the  man- 


156     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

ners  of  a  people  and  disgusted  with  their  mor- 
als. On  the  other  hand  one  may  appreciate  the 
necessity  of  fulfilling  certain  property  obliga- 
tions, like  paying  taxes,  without  appreciating 
the  political  doctrines  of  the  state. 

Perhaps  the  simplest  and  on  the  whole  the 
most  satisfactory  test  is  willingness  to  fight 
for  one  country  against  the  other.  That  means 
a  willingness  to  cut  one's  self  off  completely 
from  the  land  of  one's  birth  and  to  cause  the 
death  of  one's  own  old  neighbors  and  perhaps 
one's  kin.  Even  this  test  is  met  in  the  present 
war  by  many  of  the  citizens  of  the  first  gen- 
eration. Large  numbers  of  the  second  and 
third  have  satisfied  it  with  little  or  no  hesita- 
tion, even  if  there  may  have  been  regret.  In 
fact,  for  the  citizens  of  the  third  generation 
who  have  not  lived  in  a  close  community,  po- 
litical or  religious,  one  could  hardly  distinguish 
the  man  of  German  from  the  man  of  English  or 
Scandinavian  descent  in  his  attitude  towards 
the  war.  Where  the  individual  has  lived  in  a 
community  where  German  customs  have  con- 
tinued, and  the  language  is  still  spoken,  or 
where  the  man  is  a  teacher  of  German  or  a 
preacher  in  a  German  church  or  even  the  son 
of  such  a  teacher  or  preacher,  the  feelings  are 
likely  to  be  mixed.  Even  of  these  a  larger  per- 
centage than  would  be  expected  were  loyal. 


PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION        157 

The  clergyman  and  the  teacher  of  German  have 
been  recognized  propagandists  of  the  German 
spirit  as  well  as  of  the  language  and  the  gospel. 
It  is  not  strange  that  they  and  their  children 
persist  as  Germans  when  others  have  become 
Americans.  A  secondary  allegiance  undoubt- 
edly goes  to  America  and  were  the  enemy  other 
than  the  fatherland,  they  would  fight  as  well 
as  another.  Put  ourselves  in  their  places  as 
residents  of  the  second  generation  in  Germany 
and  one  can  see  how  little  one  would  desire  to 
face  the  ordeal  of  fighting  against  the  home 
nation  and  possibly  against  relatives  and 
friends. 

Of  the  neutral  nationalities  one  finds  on  the 
whole  much  the  same  willingness  to  fight  that 
one  does  among  the  natives.  Eesistance  to  the 
draft  was  found  in  surprisingly  few  cases,  and 
then  among  individuals  who  did  not  speak  the 
language  well  enough  to  know  what  it  was  all 
about  or  who  were  members  of  sects  and  par- 
ties that  on  principle  did  not  believe  in  fight- 
ing. When  the  full  statistics  of  the  draft  are 
published,  as  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  they  will  be, 
we  shall  have  an  interesting  indication  of  the 
degree  of  de-  and  re-nationalization  among  the 
immigrants.  Meantime  if  the  accounts  of  court 
martials  have  any  value  and  the  names  among 
the  casualties  overseas  have  any  significance, 


158     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

we  must  admit  that  the  optimist  is  nearer  the 
truth  than  the  pessimist.  The  citizens  of  for- 
eign descent  have  been  converted  into  real 
members  of  the  nation  to  a  degree  that  few 
could  have  hoped. 

While  there  are  a  number  of  instances  of  im- 
migrants, who  have  proved  disloyal  or  less  loyal 
than  one  could  wish,  it  must  also  be  remem- 
bered that  much  of  what  has  been  called  dis- 
loyalty is  based  on  political  theory  that  would 
have  made  the  individual  disloyal  to  his  own 
native  country  as  well.  Pacifists  from  convic- 
tion, socialists  of  long  standing,  and  hired  spies 
constituted  the  great  majority  of  trouble 
makers  and  these  found  almost  as  many  rep- 
resentatives among  native  and  neutral  citi- 
zens as  among  the  alien  enemies.  Were  one 
to  imagine  two  million  Americans  permitted 
to  live  freely  in  Germany  with  as  little  police 
or  military  surveillance  exercised  over  them  as 
has  been  exercised  here,  we  would  be  very  much 
disappointed  if  there  had  been  no  more  trouble 
than  the  United  States  experienced  in  the 
course  of  the  war.  In  fact  a  similar  expecta- 
tion was  formed  on  the  part  of  the  less  expe- 
rienced among  German  commentators.  The  hope 
for  a  revolution  among  the  German- Ameri- 
cans had  apparently  been  one  of  the  stones 
in  the  foundation  of  the  German  military  and 


PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION        159 

political  theory.  Those  among  the  Germans 
who  had  a  better  opportunity  to  observe  the 
changes  that  came  over  the  immigrant  after  a 
few  years  or  decades  of  residence  in  America 
knew  better.  The  German  university  profes- 
sors who  saw  students  of  the  second  generation 
returned  to  study  have  long  marveled  at  the 
assimilative  capacity  of  the  American  nation. 
As  one  said  to  me,  "Children  of  German  par- 
ents come  back  to  us  with  names  no  longer  Ger- 
man, with  no  knowledge  of  the  language,  ap- 
parently even  trying  to  forget  that  they  are 
German."  That  assimilation  is  the  rule,  per- 
sistence in  the  native  tradition,  the  exception, 
is  fairly  evident  from  observation  and  from 
what  few  statistics  we  possess.  Those  who 
would  expect  more  forget  the  failures  of  the 
native  born,  and  overestimate  the  possible  ef- 
fect of  a  few  years'  residence  in  a  foreign  land. 
While  discussing  the  influence  of  change  in 
residence  upon  nationality  one  must  remember 
that  occasionally  at  least  the  American  may 
similarly  change  his  affiliations.  One  need  only 
mention  Caspar  Gregory's  death  in  the  Ger- 
man trenches  and  a  few  less  conspicuous  ex- 
amples of  men  of  intelligence  who  as  a  result 
of  residence  in  Germany  espoused  the  German 
cause,  although  of  definitely  American  or  Eng- 
lish descent. 


160     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

The  attitude  of  the  returned  immigrant  as 
he  is  met  upon  his  native  soil  is  also  significant 
in  emphasizing  impressions,  if  it  is  not  to  be 
regarded  as  furnishing  convincing  evidence. 
As  a  traveler  in  Greece  during  'the  Balkan 
war,  I  was  much  impressed  by  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  returned  Greek  for  America.  One  found 
them  with  small  American  flags  on  their  Greek 
uniforms,  their  conversation  was  always  of 
America  and  the  superiority  of  things  Ameri- 
can. They  were  loyal  to  Greece,  too,  and  many 
of  them  had  returned  to  fight  to  avoid  losing 
their  citizenship.  Some,  as  they  spoke  of  it, 
regarded  it  as  an  anchor  to  windward  in  case 
they  should  desire  to  return,  some  wanted  to 
make  secure  the  freedom  of  their  country  out 
of  pure  patriotism,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they 
did  not  expect  to  return.  All  alike,  whether 
they  had  been  laborers  or  merchants  in  Amer- 
ica, whether  they  expected  to  be  permanent 
residents  or  only  to  return  to  accumulate  more 
wealth  to  be  enjoyed  in  the  home  land,  were 
imbued  with  the  American  spirit  and  were  in- 
clined to  place  things  American  on  a  pedestal. 
What  they  spoke  of  most  often  was  not  the 
ideals  of  American  political  life,  but  the  stand- 
ards of  living,  the  increased  comfort  that  is 
possible  in  America,  and  the  higher  wage  which 
makes  that  possible.  Coupled  with  this  was 


PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION         161 

the  appreciation  of  an  opportunity  for  advance- 
ment. Those  who  had  succeeded  were  thankful 
for  the  chance,  those  who  had  not,  hoped  that 
their  turn  might  come  and  were  rejoicing  in  the 
anticipation.  This  personal  freedom  rather 
more  than  the  abstract  political  freedom  was 
most  frequently  mentioned. 

The  factors  which  further  the  change  in  na- 
tionality as  an  individual  lives  among  a  new 
people  are  in  part  identical  with  those  that 
led  to  the  development  of  the  nation  in  history. 
The  main  difference  lies  in  the  fact  that  the 
ideals  and  resentment  against  oppression  or 
actual  hardship  are  more  important  in  the  his- 
torical development  of  a  nation,  while  the  for- 
mation of  habits  and  the  gentler  influence  of 
improvement  of  social  conditions  are  of  greater 
effect  in  inducing  the  individual  to  transfer 
allegiance.  The  ideals  may  cause  the  individual 
to  emigrate  and  raise  a  presumption  in  favor 
of  the  adopted  country.  The  most  effective  fac- 
tor of  all  is  the  gradual  development  of  new 
standards  of  living,  the  acceptance  of  the  stand- 
ards of  the  new  home  as  applicable  to  himself. 
The  change  in  ideals  is  accomplished  in  part 
through  imitation  of  the  model  passively  set, 
but  more  by  the  constantly  effective  pressure 
of  the  contempt  of  the  older  residents  for  the 
costumes  and  habits  of  the  newcomer.  The 


162     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

harsh  attitude  toward  the  foreigner  is  coupled 
with  a  kindly  reception  of  the  man  who  changes 
and  equal  opportunity  before  the  law  in  busi- 
ness and  property  relations.  This  punishment 
of  contempt  for  the  old  and  the  reward  of  will- 
ingness to  receive  as  an  equal  the  man  who 
changes  combine  to  impress  the  language,  the 
styles,  the  size  and  location  of  the  house,  and 
finally  political  ideals  and  willingness  to  die 
for  the  new  people  of  which  he  has  become  a 
part. 

After  the  standards  have  been  accepted  under 
the  influence  of  this  double  process  of  punish- 
ment for  remaining  alien  and  reward  for  assim- 
ilation, becoming  emotionally  and  politically  a 
part  of  the  nation  follows  naturally  and  un- 
avoidably. The  newcomer,  who  finds  himself 
at  first  an  outcast  except  among  the  immediate 
members  of  his  old  race,  gradually  accepts  the 
customs  and  learns  the  language  of  the  new 
country  and  as  he  does,  finds  that  his  lot  is  im- 
proved physically  and  socially.  He  is  more 
and  more  accepted.  If  he  had  not  decided  to 
remain  and  become  a  permanent  citizen  he  seri- 
ously considers  it  at  this  stage.  He  finds  that 
his  closest  associates  are  with  Americans,  or 
at  least  that  the  ideals  of  American  life  have 
become  his  ideals.  He  in  turn  begins  to  look 
down  upon  the  newcomer  with  his  own  old 


PROCESS  OF  NATURALIZATION        163 

standards.  With  that  acceptance  of  the  nation 
as  his  nation,  a  desire  for  its  continuance  and 
prosperity  over  all  other  nations  develops  and 
with  that  goes  willingness  for  self-sacrifice  to 
further  that  end.  Then,  naturalization  or  na- 
tionalization is  complete.  Were  he  to  be  called 
upon  to  justify  the  changes  in  affiliation  that 
have  developed  in  this  habitual  way,  the  proba- 
bility is  that  he  would  find  a  reason  for  it  in 
the  phrases  of  liberty,  opportunity,  or  the  su- 
periority of  our  institutions.  That  these  have 
had  no  effect  cannot  be  asserted,  but  the  great- 
er well-being  and  the  formation  of  habits  which 
make  the  continuance  of  the  new  life  an  essen- 
tial to  happiness  are  probably  much  more  im- 
portant. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   NATION  AND   THE  MOB  CONSCIOUSNESS 

MODEEN  writers  without  any  important  ex- 
ception unite  in  believing  that  nations  are  held 
together  by  mental  rather  than  by  physical  or 
hereditary  bonds.  It  is  something  in  the  spirit, 
not  anything  in  the  physical  constitution  or 
common  ancestry  that  makes  them  one.  Our 
discussion  so  far  reenforces  this  belief,  Exact- 
ly what  the  nature  of  the  mental  or  spiritual 
process  may  be  that  unites,  what  it  is  that 
changes  when  a  group  of  individuals  becomes 
a  nation,  or  what  is  altered  in  an  individual 
when  he  transfers  his  allegiance  from  the  Em- 
peror of  Austria  to  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica, is  not  made  so  clear  where  any  attempt  is 
made  to  answer  the  problem  at  all.  In  a  psy- 
chological study,  such  as  we  are  attempting, 
it  is  this  phase  of  the  problem  which  must  have 
the  center  of  the  stage.  It  is  our  task  to  de- 
cide what  the  mental  processes  are  which  are 
referred  to  so  vaguely  by  the  writers  in  history 
and  political  science.  Zimmern1  defines  na- 

1  Zimmern :     ' '  Nationality  and  Government, ' '  p.  96. 
164 


NATION  AND  MOB  CONSCIOUSNESS    165 

tionality  as  "a  form  of  corporate  conscious- 
ness of  peculiar  intensity,  intimacy,  and  dig- 
nity, related  to  a  definite  home  country."  If 
we  discount  the  relation  to  a  definite  home  coun- 
try now  and  leave  it  to  be  discussed  more 
seriously  later,  it  would  seem  that  all  that  we 
have  is  a  corporate  consciousness,  which  prob- 
ably means  a  consciousness  of  belonging  to  a 
common  body  or  society.  What  this  is,  whether 
instinct  or  habit,  and  whether  as  consciousness 
it  belongs  under  feeling,  intellect  or  will,  he 
does  not  say  and  probably  for  the  problem  he 
is  interested  in  does  not  much  care.  For  our 
purpose,  however,  it  is  just  this  that  does  mat- 
ter. We  must  attempt  to  discover  if  we  can 
what  this  peculiar  consciousness  is  and  what  its 
effects  may  be  upon  the  action  of  the  indi- 
viduals that  feel  or  experience  it. 

Of  the  more  definitely  psychological  theories 
we  may  select  a  few  types  for  more  detailed 
analysis  to  show  what  is  characteristic  of  each 
and  what  all  regard  as  essential  to  the  nature 
of  nationality.  It  must  be  said  that  some  of 
the  theories  we  are  to  discuss  are  almost  as 
vague  in  their  statements  as  those  that  we  have 
just  quoted.  They  are  more  picturesque  in 
their  analogies,  but  are  quite  as  elusive  when 
we  attempt  to  discover  what  they  really  mean. 
Others  are  sufficiently  definite  in  the  compari- 


166    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OP  NATIONALITY 

sons  that  they  make,  but  the  states  or  processes 
to  which  they  compare  the  consciousness  are 
quite  as  little  known  as  the  consciousness  itself. 
Perhaps  the  most  vivid  and  at  the  same  time 
most  widely  known  of  the  modern  theories  is 
Le  Bon's,  which  is,  in  essentials,  that  a  nation 
approaches  a  crowd  in  the  nature  of  its  con- 
sciousness and  that  a  crowd  induces  in  the  indi- 
viduals who  compose  it  a  state  peculiar  to  itself 
and  allied  to  the  hypnotic  and  other  abnormal 
conditions.  Examination  of  this  theory  implies 
an  investigation  of  the  nature  of  the  mind  of 
a  mob  in  the  first  place  and  then  of  the  ques- 
tion how  far  the  nation  resembles  the  crowd. 
Le  Bon 2  insists  that  the  man  in  the  crowd  is 
altogether  transformed,  that  in  considerable 
measure  he  loses  all  of  his  distinguishing  char- 
acteristics of  control,  that  he  is  fused  with  the 
other  individuals  to  constitute  a  new  mental 
unit.  He  speaks  more  or  less  pictorially  of  the 
process  as  one  of  giving  over  all  of  the  ac- 
quired characters  and  getting  back  to  the  in- 
stincts which  all  men  have  in  common  just  be- 
cause they  are  men.  In  these  fundamental  in- 
stincts they  are  little  different  from  the  beasts ; 
they  descend  to  a  lower  level  of  culture  and 
evolution.  More  definitely  he  compares  the 
man  in  the  mob  to  a  man  hypnotized.  He  as- 

*G.  Le  Bon:     "The  Crowd,"  p.  11  et  passim. 


NATION  AND  MOB  CONSCIOUSNESS    167 

serts  that  in  both  conditions  the  activity  of  the 
cortex  is  in  abeyance  and  that  the  individual 
is  controlled  only  by  the  action  of  the  medulla. 
The  neurology  involved  in  this  statement  is 
archaic,  if  it  were  ever  accepted,  but  we  are 
less  concerned  with  the  detailed  theory  than 
with  the  description  of  the  state  and  the  condi- 
tions of  the  action.  The  test  of  the  theory 
is  the  closeness  of  the  resemblance  between  the 
man  hypnotized  and  the  man  in  the  crowd.  The 
stage  of  hypnosis  that  offers  similarities  is  the 
somnambulistic.  In  this  the  patient  is  marked 
by  susceptibility  to  suggestion  in  thought  and 
action,  and  even  in  perception.  The  least  com- 
mand is  executed,  however  absurd  it  may  seem. 
Any  statement  seems  to  meet  with  acceptance, 
and  the  patient  will  even  see  objects  said  to  be 
present  where  nothing  resembles  them.  Thus 
Binet  could  make  a  patient  see  a  picture  on  a 
blank  card,  and  when  shown  the  same  card 
when  hypnotized  on  another  occasion  the  pa- 
tient would  again  see  the  picture.  The  indi- 
vidual hypnotized  seems  also  to  have  the  emo- 
tions that  are  suggested  to  him.  He  will  weep 
at  command  or  when  it  is  suggested  by  word  or 
picture;  he  becomes  angry  when  his  fist  is 
clenched  or  the  command  is  given.  He  also 
will  at  suggestion  assume  a  part  and  act  it 
out  consistently.  An  almost  invariable  symp- 


168    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

torn  of  this  stage  of  hypnosis  is  that  there  is 
when  wakened  no  memory  of  any  of  the  hap- 
penings of  the  hypnotized  period. 

When  we  compare  the  action  of  the  man  in 
the  crowd  with  this  state  we  find  many  similari- 
ties and  a  few  differences.  It  should  be  em- 
phasized that  Le  Bon  would  not  ascribe  this 
peculiar  state  to  every  crowd,  but  only  to  those 
under  special  conditions.  He  would  say  that 
men  might  gather  without  going  into  this  con- 
dition, without  becoming  fused  into  the  unity 
that  submits  each  to  the  control  of  the  whole. 
The  existence  of  the  peculiar  condition  does  not 
depend  upon  the  size  of  the  crowd,  but  upon 
other  attendant  circumstances.  At  times  the 
group  goes  into  a  trance,  becomes  hypnotized; 
at  times  the  same  group  or  another  group  of 
the  same  size  might  gather  and  the  men  in  it 
remain  normal.  Le  Bon  has  in  mind  the  mob 
in  action,  as  in  the  French  or  Russian  Revo- 
lution* or  any  crowd  indulging  in  riots.  It  is 
then  that  we  see  the  individuals  carried  away 
with  little  thought  and  less  control.  There 
can  be  no  question  that  under  these  conditions 
the  individual  will  commit  acts  that  he  would 
despise  when  alone.  The  reduction  of  control 
is  in  the  influence  of  the  directive  forces  of  ex- 
periences, the  forces  that  constitute  what  we 
group  under  the  term  reason.  In  general,  the 


NATION  AND  MOB  CONSCIOUSNESS    169 

instincts  dominate,  but  in  neither  the  hypno- 
tized condition  nor  in  the  mob  is  direction  alto- 
gether abrogated.  The  limitations  of  ordinary 
morals  and  good  taste  are  merely  reduced. 
There  is  a  point  beyond  which  neither  will  go. 
The  hypnotized  patient  will  commit  a  play  mur- 
der with  a  paper  dagger,  but  will  not  stab  with 
a  real  dagger.  A  mob  will  commit  murder,  as 
has  happened  altogether  too  often,  but  it  does 
not  do  it  unless  it  can  find  some  reason  that, 
in  form  at  least,  would  satisfy  a  sane  man  in 
a  quiet  moment.  The  criminal  is  lynched  be- 
cause the  punishment  of  the  law  is  not  ade- 
quate. The  bourgeoisie  are  destroyed  for  fear 
that  they  may  again  regain  power  and  oppress 
the  proletariat.  Or  this  rich  man  deserves 
death,  not  that  he  has  done  anything  him- 
self, but  that  he  belongs  to  a  class  that  has  op- 
pressed and  he  will  himself  if  occasion  arises, 
or  he  must  have  injured  some  one  or  he  would 
not  have  been  so  wealthy.  The  crowd  acts  be- 
cause it  accepts  these  arguments,  but  in  many 
cases  the  arguments  are  supplied  by  a  leader, 
and  the  greater  suggestibility  of  the  mob  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  they  will  see  but  the 
one  side  of  the  case  which  is  presented  by  the 
oratorical  leader,  and  that  they  are  not  in  a 
condition  to  resist  the  tendency  to  believe  an 
argument  of  the  most  fallacious  type. 


170     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

The  suggestibility  of  the  mob  extends  to  the 
perception  processes  as  well.  Innumerable 
cases  are  on  record  in  which  all  of  the  members 
of  a  crowd  will  see  what  is  suggested  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  it  has  no  existence  in  reality. 
We  can  find  instances  all  through  history  in 
which  armies  in  the  excitement  of  a  conflict  or 
the  fatigue  of  retreat  have  seen  apparitions. 
St.  George  appeared  to  the  crusaders  on  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem,  and  even  in  the  last  war 
there  have  been  several  occasions  when  a  whole 
army  has  seen  an  apparition  or  apparitions. 
The  best  attested  instance  is  perhaps  the  angels 
seen  by  the  British  on  the  retreat  from  Mons. 
The  evidence  for  these  hallucinations  would 
easily  find  acceptance  in  a  court  of  law  unless 
questioned  on  a  priori  grounds.  At  other  times 
St.  George  or  St.  Michael  has  been  seen  lead- 
ing the  attack  upon  the  enemy,  or  strange  lights 
have  been  seen  in  the  sky  by  a  number  of  men 
and  the  sight  has  been  accepted  as  a  happy 
omen  and  inspired  a  successful  charge.  All 
of  these  visions  must  be  regarded  as  collective 
hallucinations,  started  by  some  one  man  and 
extending  to  other  members  of  the  crowd.  They 
are  altogether  similar  to  the  collective  hallu- 
cinations which  are  supposed  to  explain  the 
Indian  conjuring  trick  of  making  a  tree  grow 
before  the  eyes  of  a  crowd  or  the  other  of  throw- 


NATION  AND  MOB  CONSCIOUSNESS    171 

ing  a  rope  into  the  air  which  extends  out  of 
sight  and  is  climbed  by  a  sailor  or  acrobat. 
All  taken  together  show  that  on  occasion,  rather 
rare  occasion,  to  be  sure,  an  hallucination  suf- 
ficiently vivid  to  lead  to  vigorous  action  may 
be  induced  in  a  crowd. 

The  changes  in  the  emotions  are  as  marked 
as  are  the  changes  in  thought  and  action.  In 
the  crowd  this  is  a  subordinate  phenomenon. 
The  thought  or  the  perception  is  suggested  first 
and  emotion  and  action  follow.  If  we  admit 
that  there  are  similarities  between  the  condi- 
tion in  the  crowd  and  in  hypnotism,  we  must 
also  admit  that  there  are  differences  which 
are  quite  as  striking.  The  man  hypnotized 
to  the  state  of  somnambulism  always  forgets 
after  waking  what  he  did  during  the  stage 
of  hypnosis.  In  the  crowd  there  is  no  such 
amnesia.  The  individual  remembers  all  of  his 
acts.  The  hypnotized  man  gives  definite  evi- 
dence of  being  in  an  abnormal  state.  He  shows 
signs  of  the  advent  of  the  condition  by  groans, 
change  in  breathing,  and  sometimes  muscular 
contractions  that  may  approach  slight  con- 
vulsions. These  are  lacking  in  the  development 
of  the  crowd  consciousness.  While  the  most 
skeptical  critic  would  be  compelled  to  admit 
that  there  are  similarities  between  the  crowd 
state  and  the  hypnotic,  the  differences  are  quite 


172     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

as  marked.  One  is  justified  in  the  statement 
that  a  man  in  the  crowd  is  somewhat  similar  in 
his  acts  to  the  man  hypnotized,  not  that  he  is 
hypnotized.  The  similarity  is  in  the  action,  not 
in  the  state  itself. 

It  has  also  been  asserted  that  in  the  mob  the 
individual  is  highly  suggestible  or  that  he  is 
controlled  altogether  by  imitation.  The  first 
of  these  theories  states  what  is  true  of  the  hyp- 
notic theory.  Not  to  make  the  man  in  the  mob 
too  different  from  the  man  in  his  ordinary  life, 
it  is  well  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  in  one  sense 
all  that  we  do  is  done  through  suggestion.  Ee- 
duced  to  its  simplest  terms  suggestion  is  noth- 
ing more  than  habit  on  the  one  hand  and  asso- 
ciation of  ideas  on  the  other.  Give  any  man 
a  stimulus  that  has  been  connected  with  a  cer- 
tain movement  and  he  will  make  that  move- 
ment at  once.  Ask  him  a  question  and  the  an- 
swer that  has  been  most  frequently  given  will 
come  to  his  mind  and  in  most  cases  to  his  lips. 
Suggestion  is  nothing  more.  We  use  the  term 
suggestion  for  the  instances  in  which  the  re- 
sponse is  more  mechanical,  when  the  suggested 
movements  or  ideas  are  opposed  to  rational  in- 
terests or  are  more  than  usually  uncontrolled. 
This  statement  that  the  individual  is  subject  to 
suggestion  is  about  all  that  is  true  in  Le  Bon's 
statement  that  a  man  in  a  mob  is  a  man  hypno- 


NATION  AND  MOB  CONSCIOUSNESS    173 

tized.  It  is  only  necessary  to  add  that  a  man 
is  always  subject  to  suggestion  and  is  more 
subject  to  it  in  the  crowd  than  when  alone. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  imitation  which 
has  been  made  a  law  of  social  action  by  Tarde 
and  many  of  his  followers.  The  movement  that 
is  imitated  furnishes  a  stimulus  to  action,  sug- 
gests it,  if  we  use  the  term  discussed  above. 
Imitation  is  only  another  form  of  suggestion. 
Of  both  it  should  be  said  that  they  attract  at- 
tention only  when  the  act  or  thought  that  they 
initiate  is  in  some  way  different  from  the  ordi- 
nary. Usually  the  movements  and  ideas  are 
controlled  by  wider  experiences,  by  what  we  or- 
dinarily know  as  will.  In  the  crowd  this  con- 
trol is  reduced.  But  the  control  is  not  alto- 
gether relinquished  in  favor  either  of  imita- 
tion or  of  suggestion.  The  movement  that  shall 
be  imitated  is  determined  by  the  instinct  of  the 
individual  and  by  his  reason  and  all  other  fac- 
tors that  control  experience.  Experiments  on 
monkeys,  supposed  to  be  the  most  imitative  of 
animals,  show  that  they  will  not  imitate  every 
movement  that  they  see,  in  fact  the  experi- 
ments so  far  made  have  never  been  able  to  show 
that  a  monkey  can  be  taught  to  make  a  new 
movement  by  imitation.  He  may  be  shown  a 
movement  a  great  many  times  and  make  but 
slight  effort  to  repeat  and  when  he  does  try  to 


174    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

repeat  it  is  necessary  for  him  to  go  through  an 
elaborate  try,  try  again  process  before  he  will 
succeed  in  doing  what  he  has  been  shown.  In 
the  monkey  and  in  man  as  well,  imitation  is 
successful  only  when  the  movement  to  be  imi- 
tated has  already  been  made  before  and  is 
thoroughly  known.  Even  then  only  those  move- 
ments that  promise  desirable  results  will  be 
imitated  and  if  the  results  prove  undesirable 
when  obtained,  the  movement  will  not  be  re- 
peated. Imitation  is  not  then  really  an  inde- 
pendent force  or  condition  of  action,  it  is  only 
the  name  for  the  result  of  a  number  of  other 
forces.  The  result,  not  the  cause,  is  empha- 
sized in  the  term.  The  only  new  feature  and 
the  only  instinctive  element  in  the  fact  of  imi- 
tation is  the  instinct  that  was  emphasized  in  an 
earlier  chapter,  that  a  man  will  be  attracted  by 
the  action  of  his  fellows,  and  will  in  conse- 
quence attend  to  their  movements,  and,  second- 
ly, that  there  is  an  instinctive  tendency  to  do 
what  all  others  are  doing.  Imitation  is  only 
suggestion  with  the  added  effects  of  these  two 
instinctive  tendencies. 

One  must  insist,  then,  that  the  same  truth  is 
at  the  basis  of  the  three  theories  that  describe 
the  man  in  the  mob  as  hypnotized,  as  acting 
under  suggestion  and  as  being  controlled  alto- 
gether by  imitation.  In  hypnotism  suggestion 


NATION  AND  MOB  CONSCIOUSNESS    175 

rules,  and  imitation  is  only  suggestion  in  which 
the  stimulus  is  the  act  of  another  man.  If  one 
object  that  in  hypnotism  suggestion  is  much 
stronger  than  it  is  in  the  normal  state,  we  may 
answer  that  the  man  in  the  mob  is  not  so  com- 
pletely open  to  suggestion  as  the  man  hypno- 
tized. The  principles  of  action  of  the  man  in 
the  mob  are  the  same  as  those  of  the  man  under 
ordinary  circumstances.  The  suggestibility  of 
the  man  in  the  mob  is  limited  as  is  that  of  the 
normal  man  by  instinct  and  by  ideals  or  rea- 
son. One  may  even  assert  that  the  instincts  of 
the  men  in  the  group  are  the  essential  forces 
in  determining  the  character  and  degree  of  the 
action.  When  a  mob  is  angry  because  of  an  act 
that  arouses  its  sympathy  for  the  victim  and 
hatred  of  the  aggressor,  it  will  go  to  the  great- 
est excesses  at  the  slightest  excuse.  In  this 
the  responses  are  merely  exaggerated  by  the 
presence  of  the  other  members  of  the  mob. 
Should  one  attempt  to  induce  the  mob  to  run 
away  at  the  sight  of  the  atrocity,  when  no  great 
danger  threatened  the  members,  the  endeavor 
would  be  wasted.  Should  one  at  any  time 
suggest  to  the  mob  some  act  that  was  in  it- 
self ridiculous  or  was  not  in  harmony  with 
some  one  of  the  instinctive  tendencies  of  the 
individuals  there  would  be  complete  failure. 
More  than  likely  all  would  break  out  in  laugh- 


176    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

ter  or  in  jeers  and  the  mob  would  dissolve  into 
its  elements.  Where  the  crowd  has  been  trained 
by  one  man  and  accustomed  to  one  set  of  acts, 
no  matter  how  ridiculous,  as  happens  in  the 
ritual  of  certain  religious  or  pseudo-religious 
sects,  the  ridiculous  may  become  an  accepted 
sign  of  unity,  and  be  repeated  without  question. 
On  the  whole,  however,  only  acts  that  are 
adapted  to  the  situation  and  to  the  instincts  of 
the  crowd  will  be  made.  All  that  the  leader 
can  do  in  the  most  docile  mob  is  to  select  one 
from  among  the  possible  instinctive  responses. 
If  a  mob  wavers  between  flight  and  aggression 
when  each  is  in  some  degree  appropriate,  the 
act  of  a  leader  or  of  a  part  of  the  crowd  will 
decide  which  course  shall  be  adopted. 

Again,  these  theories  all  assume  that  a  mob 
is  absolutely  under  the  control  of  a  leader,  and 
some  seem  to  believe  that  the  leader  works  with 
full  consciousness  of  what  he  is  doing  and  even 
that  he  malevolently  uses  the  crowd  for  his 
own  purposes.  This  is  at  most  only  one  side 
of  the  problem.  The  leader  not  merely  exer- 
cises his  will  upon  the  crowd,  but  the  crowd 
also  works  its  will  with  him.  One  could  quite 
as  readily  sustain  the  thesis  that  the  leader 
has  been  hypnotized  by  the  mob  as  that  the 
mob  has  been  hypnotized  by  the  leader.  If 
the  statement  can  be  made  with  some  plausibil- 


NATION  AND  MOB  CONSCIOUSNESS    177 

ity  that  the  members  of  the  mob  evidence  an 
unwonted  submissiveness  to  the  leader,  it  may 
also  be  said  that  the  leader  exercises  an  abnor- 
mal aggressiveness.  Any  one  who  has  even 
temporarily  and  in  minor  matters  assumed  the 
leadership  of  a  crowd  is  in  some  degree  aware 
of  a  change  in  his  attitude  or  character.  Even 
in  addressing  an  audience,  one  feels  at  times 
an  exaltation  which  one  may  imagine  leaders 
to  feel  in  a  crisis.  A  practised  speaker  has  an 
assurance  before  a  sympathetic  audience  that 
h^  does  not  feel  in  his  study,  and  will  not  in- 
frequently make  statements  that  he  would  not 
make  in  writing.  For  many  men  the  presence 
of  an  audience  acts  very  much  like  wine,  and  in 
some  the  effects  are  deplorable.  The  perma- 
nent or  temporary  leader  of  a  crowd  is  affected 
even  more  strongly.  He  becomes  more  impor- 
tant in  his  own  eyes  because  of  the  position  he 
holds.  After  he  has  overcome  the  first  instinc- 
tive fear  of  the  crowd  that  is  felt  by  all  of  its 
members,  he  goes  to  the  other  extreme  and 
takes  courage  from  the  group  to  attempt  deeds 
that  he  would  not  dare  alone,  and  would  not 
plan  for  the  crowd  in  a  quiet  moment.  For 
good  or  for  ill  he  rises  to  heights  of  which  he 
is  not  ordinarily  capable.  He  feels  in  himself 
the  strength  of  the  men  he  is  leading  and  acts 
correspondingly. 


178     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

The  leader  also  takes  many  of  his  beliefs  and 
opinions  from  the  crowd.  He  hears  a  cry  of 
" lynch  him,"  repeats  the  cry  as  if  it  were  his 
own  opinion,  and  takes  the  first  step  towards 
putting  the  man  to  death.  Should  he  hear  a 
plea  for  clemency  he  would  be  equally  willing  to 
lead  a  rescue.  There  is  no  weighing  of  evidence 
on  his  part,  no  real  decision,  only  one  side  of 
the  case  presents  itself  and  only  one  set  of  in- 
stincts has  a  chance  for  action.  He  is  the  em- 
bodiment, not  merely  of  the  executive  force  of 
the  crowd  but  in  large  measure  of  its  opinion, 
of  its  reason,  and  of  its  emotion  as  well.  It  is 
here  that  the  ordinary  fear  of  the  crowd  as- 
serts itself.  While  the  leader  is  bold  when  he 
represents  it  against  the  opinion  of  the  victim, 
particularly  when  it  is  expressed  against  a 
weak  individual,  he  is  a  coward  against  the  de- 
mand of  the  crowd  itself.  He  does  what  it  de- 
mands or  what  he  thinks  it  demands  with  little 
or  no  question.  Even  Napoleon  always  feared 
to  oppose  or  thwart  a  mob.  It  is  this  curious 
interdependence  between  the!  leader  and  the 
crowd  that  contributes  most  to  making  the  mob 
irresponsible.  Each  relies  upon  the  other  and 
makes  the  other  take  the  blame  for  failure, 
while  each  is  willing  to  ascribe  any  success  to 
the  leader.  A  member  of  a  crowd  may  advo- 


NATION  AND  MOB  CONSCIOUSNESS    179 

cate  a  course  of  action  or  unite  with  the 
others  in  doing  something  of  whose  advisabil- 
ity he  may  be  in  doubt.  The  leader  may  be 
just  as  doubtful,  but  afraid  to  protest  for  fear 
of  the  mob.  It  is  this  that  makes  the  action  of 
the  mob  so  irrational.  Each  suggestion  is  made 
more  recklessly  than  it  would  be  in  private,  it 
is  also  only  slightly  weighed,  for  each  throws 
the  responsibility  for  the  act  upon  some  one 
else  or  upon  the  crowd  as  a  whole. 

The  activity  of  the  crowd  and  of  the  leader 
in  the  crowd  is  primarily  an  expression  of  the 
social  instincts,  particularly  of  the  instinct  that 
makes  the  individual  subordinate  himself  to  the 
opinions  and  beliefs  of  the  whole.  It  is  this 
that  makes  the  crowd  act  as  if  hypnotized  and 
also  makes  suggestion  and  imitation  so  impor- 
tant. What  makes  the  crowd  different  in  its 
action  from  the  action  of  a  society  in  its  quieter 
moods  of  comparative  isolation  is  the  fact  that 
the  ideals  and  conventions  do  not  exercise  their 
ordinary  restraints.  As  has  been  emphasized 
in  earlier  chapters,  instinct  is  usually  subor- 
dinated to  formulated  rules  of  conduct  which 
have  been  developed  in  various  ways  and  tested 
by  long  experience.  These  decide  between  the 
simple  instincts,  where  they  are  in  conflict,  and 
select  those  which  have  proved  most  adequate 
to  similar  situations  in  the  past.  At  the  same 


180     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

time  these  ideals  of  conduct  have  the  impelling 
effect  of  instincts  because  of  the  general  in- 
stinctive respect  for  the  opinions  of  society 
when  formulated  in  convention  as  well  as  when 
expressed  in  words  or  in  acts  of  the  group  im- 
mediately present  to  sight  and  hearing.  In 
brief,  then,  these  theories  which  would  explain 
the  acts  of  the  crowd  by  hypnosis,  imitation, 
or  suggestion,  are  but  expressions  of  our 
earlier  described  general  principles  of  instinct 
and  ideals.  It  is  only  that  in  the  crowd  the  ef- 
fects of  the  social  instincts  induced  by  the  bodily 
presence  of  the  crowd  dominate  over  the  slowly 
acquired  and  tested  ideals  and  so  produce  what 
we  call  uncontrolled  action. 

Finally,  admitting  what  there  is  left  that  is 
peculiar  to  the  action  of  the  crowd,  how  far  is 
a  nation  as  a  whole  similar  in  its  action  to  the 
crowd?  Le  Bon  and  Tarde  make  certain  asser- 
tions with  reference  to  the  action  of  the  crowd 
and  then  without  more  ado  apply  the  same  laws 
to  the  action  of  a  nation  or  of  a  people.  If  this 
were  altogether  fair,  either  there  is  nothing 
really  peculiar  about  the  crowd,  or  the  nation 
is  in  itself  an  abnormal  social  entity  or  organ- 
ization. A  little  consideration  will  show  that 
it  is  only  on  rare  occasions,  if  at  all,  that  the 
laws  of  the  crowd  are  also  the  laws  of  action 
of  the  nation.  Le  Bon  guards  himself  at  the 


NATION  AND  MOB  CONSCIOUSNESS     181 

beginning  of  his  discussion  by  the  statement 
that  it  is  only  infrequently  that  the  mob  really 
fuses  into  a  new  entity,  only  when  its  cerebral 
action  is  in  abeyance  and  the  action  of  the  me- 
dulla obtains  prominence.  This  happens  only 
at  moments  of  great  excitement.  These  mo- 
ments must  be  very  rare  in  the  life  of  the  na- 
tion. The  means  of  communication  are  not  suf- 
ficiently rapid  for  the  whole  of  a  great  state 
to  be  fused  into  one  and  to  be  dominated  by  a 
single  impulse,  except  on  rare  occasions.  When 
the  Maine  was  sunk  in  Havana  harbor  a  wave  of 
emotion  spread  over  the  United  States,  very 
much  as  an  emotion  might  spread  in  a  crowd, 
and  the  authorities  were  compelled  to  declare 
war  against  the  will  of  most  of  the  responsible 
statesmen.  Something  of  the  same  kind  oc- 
curred at  the  time  of  the  sinking  of  the  Lusi- 
tania,  but  the  effect  was  less  immediate,  prob- 
ably because  it  was  only  one  of  a  series  of 
events  of  ever  increasing  atrocity.  The  na- 
tion's decision  in  favor  of  war  was  made  more 
deliberately  and  rationally  in  accordance  with 
the  evidence. 

For  the  most  part  the  nation  thinks  as  a  sane 
individual  in  isolation  thinks.  The  various  in- 
stinctive responses  that  would  impel  to  opposed 
actions  neutralize  each  other,  and  while  it  would 
be  an  optimist  or  a  blind  man  who  would  assert 


182     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

that  the  decisions  have  close  approximation  to 
perfection  even  in  the  best  organized  of  na- 
tional states,  the  final  decisions  usually  attain 
the  level  of  the  average  intelligence  of  the  men 
who  compose  the  group.  This  hesitation  is  due 
partly  to  the  slow  means  of  communication  and 
the  balancing  of  different  reactions  to  the  same 
situation  by  men  in  different  parts  of  the  coun- 
try, partly  to  the  action  of  established  conven- 
tion, and  partly,  in  the  modern  state,  to  the  ef- 
fects of  party  government.  Nearly  every  situa- 
tion tends  to  arouse  more  than  one  instinctive 
response.  In  our  lynching  mob,  sympathy  for 
the  victim  or  anger  at  his  deed  are  both  possi- 
ble reactions,  but  the  mob  as  a  whole  will  make 
but  one  of  these  reactions  and  will  be  but  little 
affected  by  the  other  possibility.  In  the  nation 
that  hears  of  the  event  only  by  rumor  or  reads 
of  it  in  the  papers,  one  emotion  is  aroused  in 
one  group,  another  in  another.  By  the  time  a 
decision  has  been  reached  through  reconciling 
opposed  opinions  there  is  a  balanced  judgment 
which  neutralizes  strong  suggestions. 

Conventional  ideals  also  have  the  same  effect. 
They  are  to  be  deprecated  as  preventing  rapid 
advance  and  frequently  preventing  advance  al- 
together, but  at  the  same  time  they  do  prevent 
excesses  that  result  from  immediate  uncon- 
trolled instinctive  responses.  They  may  be  the 


NATION  AND  MOB  CONSCIOUSNESS    183 

result  of  experience  at  a  relatively  low  stage  of 
development,  but  the  instinctive  responses  for 
the  most  part  represent  responses  in  the  pre- 
human period,  are  remnants  of  a  still  more 
rudimentary  condition.  The  conventional  meth- 
ods of  procedure  in  reaching  decisions  of  a  so- 
cial type  compel  delay,  and  while  they  prevent 
rising  to  a  possible  best,  they  also  save  society 
from  the  possible  worst.  The  influence  of  party 
government,  even  more  than  the  local  differ- 
ences of  opinion  prevents  the  domination  of  the 
nation  by  one  set  of  instincts,  or  by  one  form 
of  impulses.  Each  party  is  skeptical  of  the 
opinions  of  the  other  and  questions  on  prin- 
ciple any  statement  made  and  any  action  ad- 
vocated by  the  other.  This  means  that  the  op- 
posing considerations  are  sure  to  be  heard, 
and  decision  will  follow  upon  consideration  of 
more  than  one  aspect.  A  nation  will  be  carried 
away  by  impulse  only  on  some  question  that  has 
not  been  a  party  matter.  Even  new  questions 
are  likely  either  to  be  similar  to  familiar  is- 
sues, or  are  made  party  measures  because  the 
men  who  suggest  them  belong  to  a  party  and 
so  arouse  opposition  and  discussion.3 

The  only  place  where  national  affairs  might 
be  settled  as  the  mob  settles  them  is  in  the  na- 

*Cf.  A.  Lawrence  Lowell:     "Public  Opinion  and  Popular 
Government,"  p.  96. 


184     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

tional  assembly.  Even  here  the  mob  spirit  is 
seldom  in  evidence.  The  member  is  in  the  first 
place  really  representative.  He  knows  that 
what  he  does  must  be  passed  upon  by  his  con- 
stituency, and  that  reelection  depends  upon 
doing  what  they  will  accept,  even  if  one  decision 
has  not  yet  been  advocated  by  them.  The  mass 
of  his  partisans  at  home  restricts  his  freedom 
of  judgment  and  prevents  him  from  being  led 
away  by  the  suggestions  of  his  colleagues,  the 
members  of  the  immediately  present  crowd. 
The  rules  of  procedure  with  their  requirements 
of  votes  at  different  times  and  by  different 
houses  also  make  impossible  or  unlikely  an  un- 
thinking decision.  While  at  times  one  sees  in 
the  assembly  evidence  of  the  effect  of  the  crowd, 
that  is  only  on  unimportant  matters  or  at  the 
most  only  in  periods  of  crisis,  when  the  legis- 
lature consciously  defers  to  the  individuals  who 
are  responsible  for  decisions.  Again  the  party 
system  is  active  in  checking  too  hasty  action, 
sometimes  even  in  delaying  desirable  action. 
The  presumption  that  any  suggestion  from  the 
opposing  party  must  be  wrong  inhibits  any  too 
sudden  influence  that  it  might  have  and,  if  no 
other  factor  were  at  work,  would  prevent  the 
assembly  from  becoming  a  mob  in  Le  Bon's 
sense  of  the  term. 
While,  then,  we  must  do  justice  to  the  im- 


NATION  AND  MOB  CONSCIOUSNESS    185 

portance  of  Le  Bon's  discussion  upon  many 
modern  theories  and  accept  some  of  his  con- 
clusions regarding  the  influences  that  are  active 
in  the  control  of  crowds  and  even  of  peoples, 
we  cannot  accept  his  views  as  they  are  stated. 
The  crowd  is  not  made  up  of  hypnotized  indi- 
viduals, nor  is  suggestion  alone  the  explanation 
of  its  acts.  Suggestion  in  one  sense  explains 
all  human  acts,  but  it  is  not  the  machine-like 
form  of  suggestion  that  Le  Bon  attributes  to 
the  mob.  All  action  is  due  to  suggestion,  but 
to  suggestion  controlled  by  ideals  and  conven- 
tionalized wider  experience.  Due  to  the  instinc- 
tive effect  of  the  other  men  present,  this  con- 
trol is  less  when  the  man  is  in  the  mob  than 
when  he  is  in  isolation.  We  must  insist,  too, 
that  what  slight  difference  really  exists  between 
the  isolated  individual  and  the  man  in  the  crowd 
is  not  in  evidence  in  the  collective  activity  of 
the  nation,  or  can  be  observed  only  on  rare  oc- 
casions of  great  excitement.  The  nation  is  not 
a  mob,  even  when  we  grant  much  less  of  the 
abnormal  to  the  action  of  the  mob  than  Le  Bon 
insists  that  it  has.  We  shall  attempt  in  the  next 
chapter  to  discover  how  the  nation  really  does 
think  and  feel  and  act. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  NATIONAL  MIND  AND  HOW  IT  THINKS,  FEELS, 
AND  ACTS 

IN  the  last  chapter  we  reached  the  negative 
conclusion  that  while  the  nation  has  many  of 
the  characteristics  of  the  mob  it  is  not  a  mob, 
nor  is  the  mob  so  instinctive  in  its  acts  as  Le 
Bon  and  others  assert.  Still  there  are  laws 
that  control  the  activities  of  the  nation  and 
there  are  theories  that  would  assign  to  the  na- 
tion a  mind  very  much  as  mind  is  assigned  to 
the  individual.  These  theories  have  something 
in  common  with  the  doctrines  of  Le  Bon.  They 
differ  from  it  mainly  in  that  they  regard  the 
mind  of  the  nation  as  a  more  highly  developed 
mind,  more  like  the  mind  of  a  sane,  normal  in- 
dividual than  of  a  man  hypnotized.  We  may 
examine  this  theory  and  in  connection  with  it 
attempt  to  discover  how  the  nation  thinks,  even 
if  we  cannot  accept  the  theory  that  we  are  ex- 
amining. 

The  analogy  on  which  many  of  these  theories 
are  based  is  the  somewhat  mystical  one  that 
the  nation  possesses  a  super-individual  mind, 

186 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  187 

that  by  living  together  the  members  of  a  na- 
tion in  some  way  develop  an  actual  new  mind 
that  is  related  to  the  bodies  of  the  individuals 
in  very  much  the  same  way  that  the  mind  of 
the  individual  is  to  the  cells  of  which  his  body 
is  composed.  This  is  a  perfectly  good  analogy. 
One  frequently  speaks  of  the  body  as  a  colony 
of  cells,  each  of  which  is  an  independent  unit 
save  for  its  dependence  upon  the  whole  for  its 
nutrition,  and  for  certain  of  its  stimuli.  Simi- 
larly, one  might  argue,  the  individuals  are  in- 
dependent when  apart,  but  when  they  come  to- 
gether there  is  in  some  way  developed  or  gen- 
erated a  group  of  phenomena  that  is  common 
to  all  of  them.  The  voluntary  and  emotional 
processes  are  more  prominent  in  this  complex, 
the  rational  and  sensory  components  are  little 
in  evidence  if  they  are  not  altogether  lacking. 
The  will  of  the  group  dominates  the  will  of  the 
individual,  if  the  latter  has  any  place  in  the 
action  of  the  group  at  all. 

Many  facts  can  undoubtedly  be  made  to  har- 
monize with  this  assumption.  Yet  it  suffers 
from  two  defects  if  it  is  intended  as  more  than 
a  vague  analogy.  In  the  first  place  the  relation 
of  the  individual  consciousness  or  mind  to  the 
separate  cells  is  by  no  means  so  clearly  known 
or  understood  as  one  would  like  to  have  it. 
All  that  we  know  is  that  in  some  way  the  in- 


188     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

dividual  is  conscious,  and  that  the  physical  or- 
ganism on  which  that  consciousness  depends  is 
a  mass  of  separate  cells.  We  know  nothing, 
however,  of  any  consciousness  in  the  cells  and 
we  have  only  indirect  evidence  of  the  way  in 
which  the  consciousness  of  the  whole  individual 
depends  upon  the  activities  of  the  different 
cells.  To  explain  the  consciousness  of  the  so- 
cial whole  in  terms  of  the  relation  of  the  indi- 
vidual consciousness  to  separate  elements  is  to 
attempt  an  explanation  by  means  of  something 
that  is  itself  far  from  fully  known. 

If  one  may  assert  that  we  have  no  direct 
knowledge  of  the  consciousness  of  the  separate 
elements  in  the  organism  of  the  individuals,  it 
must  also  be  asserted  that  we  have  no  imme- 
diate evidence  for  the  existence  of  a  super-con- 
sciousness or  over-soul  in  the  group  or  in  so- 
ciety. Each  individual  is  aware  of  his  own  con- 
sciousness, may  be  aware  that  his  own  con- 
sciousness or  his  behavior  is  modified  when  he  is 
in  a  crowd  or  is  acting  in  a  group,  but  no  one 
knows  immediately  the  consciousness  of  the 
crowd  apart  from  this  modification  of  the  minds 
of  the  individuals  who  compose  it.  The  crowd 
has  no  means  of  expression  apart  from  the  lan- 
guage of  its  members.  One  knows  what  a  na- 
tion believes  only  from  the  assent  of  its  mem- 
bers to  general  propositions ;  one  knows  of  the 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  189 

emotions  of  the  crowd  only  from  the  emotional 
expression  of  the  individuals.  There  is  no  pos- 
sibility of  communicating  with  the  soul  of  a  na- 
tion other  than  by  way  of  the  souls  of  its  ele- 
ments and  these  can  never  be  sure  that  they 
are  accurately  representing  the  over-soul.  One 
can  go  beyond  only  by  means  of  the  plebiscite 
and  that  seldom  speaks  with  unanimity  in  de- 
tail, however  close  may  be  the  community  of 
sentiment  as  regards  general  principles.  That, 
too,  gives  only  the  opinions  of  the  separate  ele- 
ments, not  the  belief  of  the  over-soul  as  such. 

One  might  abandon  the  attempt  to  discover  a 
super-consciousness  directly,  as  has  been  done 
by  one  school  of  psychologists  for  the  individual 
consciousness,  and  endeavor  to  discover  simi- 
larities between  the  action  of  the  group  and  the 
action  of  the  individual.  This  would  not  give 
any  evidence  of  a  super-consciousness  because 
the  theory  denies  the  existence  even  of  the  in- 
dividual consciousness,  but  it  does  permit  one 
to  speak  of  a  social  organism,  or  of  a  social  en- 
tity, in  a  way  that  is  free  from  many  of  the  ob- 
jections raised  above.  One  can  admit  that  the 
mob  or  the  nation  intensifies  the  instincts  of  the 
individuals,  that  the  group  behaves  as  if  it  had 
a  guiding  intelligence  above  and  in  addition  to 
the  intelligences  of  the  separate  individuals. 
This  would  permit  the  use  of  the  term  national 


190     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

spirit.  It  would  not,  however,  justify  its  use 
as  a  warrant  for  acts  that  would  not  be  permit- 
ted of  themselves.  The  German  philosophers 
since  Hegel  have  spoken  as  if  a  nation,  par- 
ticularly the  German  nation,  were  the  embodi- 
ment of  a  special  spirit  of  divine  or  mysterious 
origin  and  as  if  the  advancement  of  this  spirit 
were  demanded  for  the  improvement  not  only  of 
themselves  but  of  the  world.  The  Germans  are 
to  be  regarded  like  the  Jews  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment as  a  peculiar  people,  with  a  national  spirit 
that  is  in  an  unusual  if  not  exclusive  degree 
the  embodiment  of  the  divine  influence,  and 
which  must  be  advanced  at  the  expense  of  doing 
violence  to  all  human  instincts.  What  matters 
a  series  of  murders  or  debaucheries  of  the  Bel- 
gian population!  God  has  decreed  that  the 
spirit  of  the  German  people  must  spread  over 
and  dominate  the  world.  What  boots  the  suf- 
fering of  the  uncultured  provided  only  that  all 
makes  for  the  attainment  of  this  divine  end! 
Such  deductions  as  this  would  have  no  standing. 
The  national  spirit  is  not  an  entity  which  may 
be  assumed  to  exist  independently  of  its  expres- 
sion; on  the  contrary,  it  is  merely  an  analogy 
by  which  certain  acts  and  beliefs  of  the  group 
have  been  expressed  or  explained.  The  exist- 
ence of  the  spirit  is  justified  only  in  so  far  as 
it  explains  observed  facts.  It  may  not  be  used 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  191 

as  an  established  principle  to  prove  assump- 
tions or  to  justify  courses  of  conduct  in  them- 
selves made  reprehensible. 

If  we  make  the  tentative  assumption  that  the 
social  whole  may  be  regarded  as  an  entity  apart 
from  or  added  to  the  individuals  who  compose 
it,  it  is  interesting  to  enumerate  the  qualities  or 
forms  of  behavior  that  distinguish  it.  If  we 
are  to  write  a  psychology  of  nations,  it  may 
be  well  to  discuss  our  phenomena  under  the 
heads  used  in  the  traditional  individual  psy- 
chology. First,  we  have  no  chapter  to  write  on 
sensation  and  little  on  perception.  The  social 
whole  has  no  new  means  of  acquiring  knowl- 
edge. The  sense  organs  of  the  group  are  the 
sense  organs  of  the  members.  All  that  the 
group  may  add  is  a  readiness  to  interpret  the 
contributions  of  the  senses  in  harmony  with 
the  suggestions  received  from  the  others.  As 
was  said  in  the  last  chapter,  a  group  is  more 
easily  deceived  than  the  individual,  since  each 
tends  to  accept  the  statement  of  another.  The 
first  man,  if  misled,  passes  the  mistake  on  to 
the  others.  Of  course,  if  a  sceptic  or  accurate 
observer  be  the  first  to  announce  his  opinion, 
the  group  will  see  clearly  and  will  be  less  open 
to  mistake  than  the  average  individual.  The 
mistakes  of  the  group  are  more  striking  if  not 
more  frequent  than  the  mistakes  of  the  indi- 


192     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

vidual.  Perhaps  they  are  more  striking  be- 
cause shared  by  so  many,  and  for  that  reason 
are  so  likely  to  be  accepted  as  fundamentally 
true.  Certain  it  is  that,  on  occasion,  individuals 
in  a  crowd  will  be  subject  to  illusions  that  they 
would  not  have  fallen  into  if  alone. 

Much  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  thinking  of 
the  nation.  The  thinking  is  always  of  the  in- 
dividual but  the  acceptance  is  determined  by 
the  group.  In  a  popular  assembly  it  may  truly 
be  said  that  the  final  arbiter  of  thought  is  the 
group,  not  the  individual.  Suggestions  are  made 
by  the  speaker  or  writer.  These  are  passed 
upon  by  all  hearers  or  readers  and  as  they  are 
accepted  or  rejected,  the  group  decides  upon 
their  truth.  For  practical  purposes  it  makes 
them  true  until  actual  test  may  confirm  or  dis- 
prove them.  In  many  cases,  test  is  long  de- 
layed or  the  results  of  tests  are  not  correctly 
interpreted  so  that  the  decision  of  the  group 
stands  as  the  truth  in  the  face  of  fact.  Most 
thinking  is  limited  by  the  accuracy  of  major 
premises  and,  as  the  premises  are  not  open  to 
careful,  unprejudiced  examination,  acceptance 
depends  upon  universal  agreement  or  popular 
acclaim.  Belief  in  the  right  to  domination  of 
the  German  state  could  never  be  disproved  to 
a  German  by  argument.  It  is  an  accepted  major 
premise  and  can  be  eliminated  only  by  misfor- 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  193 

tune  to  the  government  or  the  death  of  the  peo- 
ple. A  good  Republican  in  the  United  States 
is  not  open  to  argument  on  the  subject  of  pro- 
tection. Even  facts  have  no  effect  upon  him. 
The  superiority  of  a  protective  system  is  a 
major  premise  established  by  generations  of 
popular  speakers  and  probably  by  the  self-in- 
terest of  the  dominant  elements.  The  good 
Democrat  has  similar  major  premises,  equally 
irrefutable.  Facts  have  no  effect  upon  the  loyal 
partisan.  Similarly,  the  true  socialist  believes 
in  the  existence  as  a  conscious  group  of  a  capi- 
talistic class  and  in  the  essential  malevolence  of 
that  class  towards  all  labor. 

Study  of  the  process  by  which  these  premises 
are  developed  and  the  use  made  of  them  shows 
that  the  process  is  in  most  respects  the  same 
for  the  group  or  class  as  for  the  individual. 
The  premises  are  partly  the  expression  of  pre- 
judices accepted  from  parents.  In  many  cases 
these  were  essential  to  the  existence  of  the 
group  in  the  past  and  have  survived  in  spite  of 
changing  conditions.  The  continuance  for  so 
long  of  autocratic  government  is  an  instance  in 
point.  Possibly  the  dominance  of  the  lord  or 
chief  was  essential  to  the  satisfactory  leading  of 
the  men  of  the  tribe,  and  continuance  of  the 
leadership  through  heredity  was  more  certain 
than  any  form  of  election  when  the  machinery 


194     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

of  selection  had  not  been  developed  and  accept- 
ed. Any  unitary  leadership  was  better  than 
none  and  because  of  the  tendency  to  transmis- 
sion of  capacities  from  father  to  son  hereditary 
continuance  of  the  leadership  was  on  the  whole 
advantageous.  Confidence  in  the  leadership  of 
old  families  continues  to  the  present  on  the  con- 
tinent at  least  and  it  is  only  with  difficulty  that 
proved  ability  in  a  new  family  will  be  recog- 
nized. Many  major  premises  in  politics,  in  re- 
ligion, and  even  in  science  can  be  traced  in  a 
similar  way  to  general  statements  that  har- 
monized with  the  practices  and  could  not  be  re-, 
futed  by  the  experience  of  earlier  times  and 
which  now  continue  of  their  own  inertia  or 
through  the  mental  inertia  of  mankind. 

Major  premises  that  are  established  anew  in 
a  generation  owe  their  appearance  at  times  to 
the  initiative  of  experimental  workers.  Now 
that  science  is  given  a  free  hand  much,  if  not 
most,  of  the  advance  comes  from  that  source. 
Premises  established  by  science  are  always  wel- 
comed and  need  no  defense.  Society  is  con- 
vinced by  the  successful  invention  and  the  com- 
forts that  come  as  a  result  of  the  success.  Yet 
not  all  of  the  most  fully  established  results  of 
scientific  investigation  can  establish  or  maintain 
themselves  against  prejudice.  This  is  perhaps 
most  striking  in  medicine  where  there  is  great- 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  195 

est  difficulty  in  distinguishing  between  the  effect 
upon  a  single  individual  and  the  general  results 
as  determined  by  statistics.  The  prevalence  of 
the  use  of  patent  medicines,  of  the  use  of  con- 
coctions handed  down  from  grandparents  and 
long  shown  to  have  no  value,  and  the  prevalence 
of  Christian  Science  and  other  healing  cults  is 
striking  evidence  of  this  tendency  for  old  be- 
liefs to  stand  against  scientific  knowledge. 
Laws  established  in  physics  and  chemistry, 
where  each  test  gives  the  same  result,  are  less 
affected  by  popular  prejudice.  What  any  one 
can  try  is  accepted.  Statements  resting  upon 
collection  of  statistics  or  determined  by  condi- 
tions that  act  irregularly  are  more  open  to 
popular  doubt. 

Study  of  the  way  major  premises  in  the  fields 
of  religion  or  health  or  in  politics  come  to  be 
established  affords  the  best  evidence  of  the 
methods  of  affecting  the  beliefs  of  a  nation. 
One  of  the  most  important  in  its  effects  is  the 
desire  to  believe,  the  instinctive  pleasure  given 
by  the  belief.  The  complete  acceptance  of  the 
Tolstoian  and  Marxian  doctrines  by  the  prole- 
tariat of  Russia  and  the  consequent  belief  in 
the  designing  cruelty  of  the  capitalist  offers  one 
of  the  best  instances  of  this  effect.  The  men 
who  were  convinced  are  for  the  most  part  rela- 
tively uneducated,  although  education  probably 


196    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

has  little  effect  upon  the  spread  of  doctrines 
or  the  reasoning  of  the  populace,  and  also  were 
undoubtedly  suffering  from  lack  of  many  neces- 
sities of  life,  probably  the  most  essential  cir- 
cumstances. The  doctrine  of  Tolstoi  was  pro- 
mulgated by  a  man  of  the  upper  class,  who  had 
the  prestige  of  social  position  and  accepted  in- 
telligence. His  doctrines  were  based  upon  a 
first-hand  knowledge  of  the  facts.  Where  he 
described  the  actual  situation  his  statements 
could  be  checked  by  individual  experience  and 
seen  to  be  accurate.  The  scheme  promised  re- 
lief, was  based  upon  a  conception  of  human  na- 
ture highly  flattering  to  the  common  man.  In 
short,  it  was  a  doctrine  that  he  desired  to  be- 
lieve, and  to  arouse  the  desire  to  believe  takes 
the  hearer  a  long  way  on  the  road  to  belief. 

The  rest  was  done  by  iteration  and  reitera- 
tion of  the  relatively  simple  principles  until 
they  became  familiar  to  every  man  in  Russia, 
however  ignorant.  It  corresponded  to  the  in- 
stinctive desires  of  every  peasant  in  his  mud 
hut  to  think  that  he  might  have  the  power  of 
the  lord  at  the  manor,  and  that  when  he  had 
it  he  would  use  it  to  the  benefit  of  himself  and 
of  all  mankind.  Every  time  his  sympathy  was 
excited  by  a  hungry  child  he  would  think  that 
when  he  and  his  kind  were  in  power  there  would 
be  food  for  every  one.  He  could  satisfy  his 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  197 

sympathies  by  a  thought,  by  a  dream,  at  no  ex- 
pense to  himself.  Each  time  he  saw  himself 
imposed  upon  by  a  wealthier  or  more  powerful 
man  he  took  his  vengeance  in  the  thought  that 
when  the  revolution  came  that  man  would  no 
longer  have  more  than  he  had  himself.  He 
satisfied  his  vengeful  instincts  as  he  did  his  sym- 
pathetic by  the  imagination  of  the  good  time  to 
come  when  the  theory  was  realized.  No  won- 
der that  the  doctrines  were  accepted.  As  a  re- 
sult of  the  propaganda  the  name  of  Tolstoi  as 
well  as  his  doctrines  were  familiar  to  all.  Since 
the  doctrines  were  themselves  pleasant,  even  if 
out  of  harmony  with  the  best  results  of  their 
reasoning,  th^y  were  inclined  to  idealize  Tol- 
stoi, the  author,  that  they  might  be  the  more 
certain  of  his  conclusions.  Talk  even  with  an 
intelligent  Russian  of  the  proletariat  and  he 
will  quote  Tolstoi  as  a  final  authority  in  politi- 
cal economy  as  the  old  Puritan  did  his  Bible. 
What  he  says  is  not  open  to  question.  If  an 
observation  does  not  harmonize  with  his  state- 
ment, something  must  be  wrong  with  the  ob- 
servation. The  doctrines  of  socialism,  par- 
ticularly as  stated  by  Tolstoi,  had  become  a 
major  premise  for  all  social  and  political  think- 
ing in  Russia.  One  is  always  inclined  to  glorify 
the  men  whose  opinions  one  desires  to  believe, 
that  one  may  be  spared  the  trouble  of  coming 


198     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

to  a  conclusion  for  one's  self  or  the  unpleas- 
antness of  doubt. 

All  reasoning  of  the  nation  is  limited  to  the 
acceptance  or  rejection  of  suggestions  made  by 
individuals.  As  a  mind,  the  nation  as  a  whole 
originates  nothing,  it  can  do  no  more  than  ac- 
cept or  reject.  In  this  the  unintelligent  mob 
or  the  nation  as  a  whole  is  not  so  very  different 
from  the  self-selected  body  of  learned  indi- 
viduals who  pursue  any  science.  The  theories 
are  all  worked  out  by  individuals,  but  the  con- 
clusions are  accepted  and  become  part  of  the 
science  only  in  so  far  as  they  are  accepted  by 
the  somewhat  vaguely  limited  body  of  men  rec- 
ognized as  authorities  in  that  field.  One  could 
probably  cite  instances  in  which  the  conclusions 
were  accepted  because  one  desired  to  believe 
them,  or  because  there  was  no  other  statement 
on  the  point  and  any  opinion  or  decision  was 
better  than  none.  One  might  even  allege  with 
some  semblance  of  truth  that  scientists  incline 
to  vaunt  the  prowess  and  genius  of  the  men 
who  hold  views  that  they  desire  to  believe  and 
thereby  establish  the  reputation  of  the  man  at 
the  same  time  that  they  give  vogue  to  a  doctrine 
or  theory.  Certainly  the  advance  of  thought  in 
the  most  abstruse  and  accurate  sciences  and 
in  philosophy  is  like  the  growth  of  the  opinions 
of  the  populace  in  that  the  theory  is  always 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  199 

first  outlined  by  some  one  man,  is  then  accepted 
by  the  skilled  group  and  becomes  the  orthodox 
theory  or  belief. 

The  difference  between  the  mob  and  the  indi- 
vidual lies  in  the  more  critical  attitude  of  the 
latter.  The  individual  believes  what  he  desires 
to  believe,  but  only  within  limits.  The  limits 
are  set  by  the  experience  of  the  individual.  A 
statement  directly  contrary  to  the  individual's 
experience  will  be  rejected.  In  the  social  group 
if  its  members  can  find  the  vaguest  analogy 
for  the  statement  in  the  facts  of  experience, 
the  pleasant  will  be  accepted  as  true.  The  heal- 
ing cults  take  advantage  of  the  well-known  fact 
that  fear  of  a  disease  predisposes  to  it  in  cer- 
tain cases,  or  at  least  may  make  recovery  slower 
or  more  difficult,  to  generalize  in  the  form  that 
disease  is  an  illusion  and  pain  a  product  of  a 
diseased  mind.  All  advocates  of  a  political 
Utopia  find  analogies  in  present  facts  for  their 
beneficent  state.  If  they  can  find  no  analogy 
they  will  at  least  put  their  promises  on  a  plane 
where  no  practical  test  is  possible. 

While  in  general  the  nation  tests  the  theories 
presented  to  it  in  the  same  way  that  the  sepa- 
rate individuals  do,  and  the  conditions  of  belief 
are  the  same  for  the  rabble  as  for  the  select 
group  of  scholars,  the  nation  is  more  credulous 
towards  the  desired  conclusions.  This  is  true, 


200     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

first,  because  the  credulity  of  the  group  tends 
to  become  that  of  the  weakest  member.  When 
one  believes  and  announces  his  belief  he  adds 
to  the  authority  of  the  statement.  While  one 
man  does  not  necessarily  count  for  as  much  as 
another  in  the  opinion  of  the  multitude,  each 
counts  for  something  and  each  convert  is  a  new 
argument  with  the  propagandist  and  an  added 
bit  of  evidence  to  the  man  trembling  on  the 
brink  of  conviction.  Second,  society,  because  of 
this  acceptance  of  the  opinion  of  the  others, 
goes  more  quickly  and  thoroughly  either  by  its 
reason  or  its  instinct  or  experience  as  the  case 
may  be.  If  the  populace  finds  a  syllogism  that 
will  suit  its  purpose,  experiences  will  not  turn 
it  from  its  deductive  conclusion.  When  the  Rus- 
sian revolutionists  decreed  that  all  officers  were 
brutal  and  must  perish,  they  killed  the  kindly 
with  the  known  despots;  the  old  habits  of  dis- 
cipline, once  broken,  seemed  to  exaggerate  the 
license  rather  than  to  restrain  it.  When  it  was 
decided  that  the  aristocrats  should  be  robbed, 
no  cessation  of  robbery  occurred  when  they  had 
been  reduced  to  a  state  below  that  of  the  rob- 
bing peasants.  All  was  taken.  In  this  way  the 
mob,  and  the  nation,  in  less  degree,  is  single 
minded.  On  the  other  hand,  when  isolated  ex- 
periences favor  the  conclusion  that  has  been 
suggested  and  is  desired,  no  heed  is  taken  of 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  201 

general  principles.  The  Christian  Scientist  or 
the  devotee  of  Peruna  is  content  with  the  fact 
that  a  relative  has  recovered  under  the  treat- 
ment and  is  little  concerned  to  know  what  gen- 
eral principles  would  make  the  recovery  possi- 
ble. In  this  sense  the  nation  or  the  group  is 
more  likely  to  accept  the  evidence  of  a  single 
observation  or  relatively  few  experiences  in 
the  face  of  lack  of  general  principles,  or  even 
in  opposition  to  general  principles,  and  also  to 
accept  a  syllogism  when  its  conclusion  is  in  con- 
flict with  observations,  than  is  the  average  of 
the  individuals  who  compose  it.  One  takes 
courage  for  the  satisfaction  of  his  desires  from 
the  reasoning  of  others.  He  excuses  his  care- 
lessness by  reference  to  the  general  acceptance. 
But  one  can  find  instances  of  the  same  ten- 
dency in  the  most  scholarly  and  refined  works. 
When  an  author  is  hard  put  to  discover  a  major 
premise  that  will  justify  a  conclusion,  he  almost 
invariably  falls  back  upon  the  phrase  "it  is  uni- 
versally agreed  among  the  most  eminent  scien- 
tists or  philosophers,"  or  in  a  more  popular 
gathering  he  will  assert  "we  all  know  this"  or 
' '  it  is  generally  agreed. ' '  Where  he  can  prove 
his  point  by  particular  evidence  he  does ;  where 
he  cannot,  he  pretends  to  rely  upon  the  proofs 
of  others.  Such  an  argument  is  always  suspect, 
but  you  find  it  in  nearly  every  popular  speech, 


202     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

in  every  political  address,  in  almost  every  ser- 
mon, in  most  theological  treatises,  and  in  nearly 
all  abstruse  metaphysical  arguments.  One 
must  admit  also  that  it  is  occasionally  made  use 
of  in  scientific  treatises,  when  the  writer  de- 
parts from  experimentally  verified  fact. 

One  must  admit  that  the  nation  thinks  in  this 
loose  way  for  the  most  part  only  in  moments 
of  excitement  and  even  then  there  are  always 
some  who  are  not  misled.  Each  nation  or  at 
least  each  party  in  a  nation  has  certain  major 
premises  that  are  not  open  to  argument  for 
which  the  laws  of  reasoning  outlined  above  will 
hold.  On  other  subjects  the  same  groups  will 
be  perfectly  rational,  or  as  nearly  rational  as 
human  limitations  permit.  During  national 
crises  the  mass  becomes  organized  as  a  mob  and 
the  domination  by  the  majority  is  nearly  com- 
plete. During  a  war,  the  Great  War  at  least, 
doubt  of  the  final  success  is  not  permitted,  nor 
is  any  question  of  the  justness  of  the  national 
position.  Aside  from  these  repressions  of  opin- 
ion demanded  by  the  practical  necessities,  many 
abstract  principles  thoroughly  accepted  before 
the  war  cannot  obtain  a  hearing.  One  who 
questions  the  universality  of  cruelty  among  the 
enemy  is  not  granted  a  hearing.  The  hopes  for 
a  lasting  peace  and  the  believers  in  a  possible 
abolition  of  war  by  universal  agreement  are 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  203 

laughed  to  scorn.  The  individuals  who  have 
kept  an  eye  on  economy  of  expenditure  lose  all 
of  their  influence,  and  any  recognition  of  the 
usual  sympathy  for  the  foe  is  taken  as  a  sign 
of  weakness  or  of  hostility  to  the  nation's  ends 
and  desires.  This  is  partly,  no  doubt,  an  ex- 
pression of  the  necessity  for  unity  in  action 
against  the  foe.  When  there  is  no  outside  dan- 
ger, internal  differences  seem  important  and 
can  be  pushed  to  the  extreme ;  when  war  comes 
and  the  external  dangers  are  great,  lesser  diffi- 
culties recede  into  the  background.  It  is  the- 
greater  hate  which  conquers  the  less.  This 
willingness  to  give  over  the  lesser  belief  for 
the  greater  in  moments  of  crisis  constitutes  the 
characteristic  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  that  makes 
it  possible  for  them  to  maintain  themselves  as 
a  free  people.  The  Poles,  on  the  other  hand, 
have  always  shown  when  free,  that  the  internal 
hatreds,  hatred  of  opposing  political  parties, 
are  more  important  than  the  external.  Even  in 
a  crisis  they  persist  in  fighting  the  other  party 
in  the  state  more  than  the  common  foe.  In  con- 
sequence they  divide  and  are  conquered.  The 
same  is  said  of  the  Slavic  communities  in  this 
country.  They  can  seldom  keep  up  social  or 
religious  organizations  because  of  the  fre- 
quency of  the  internal  feuds. 
In  any  nation,  even  in  emergencies,  a  mi- 


204    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

nority  will  continue  to  exist  and  if  it  does  not 
express  itself  it  is  from  fear  of  the  consequences 
or  from  a  belief  that  to  do  the  wrong  thing  is 
better  than  to  do  nothing.  The  Irish  question 
was  recognized  as  unsettled  during  the  Great 
War,  even  if  the  division  which  threatened  be- 
fore the  war  to  lead  to  a  revolution  was  not  per- 
mitted to  influence  the  policy  of  the  great  par- 
ties. Similarly  the  jealousy  between  Prussia 
and  Bavaria  was  quieted  apparently  and  all 
worked  together  for  the  common  cause.  There 
is  a  latent  minority  ready  in  all  countries  to 
advocate  disarmament  and  some  form  of  inter- 
national agreement  for  settling  conflicts  which 
will  undoubtedly  find  expression  now  that  the 
treaty  of  peace  is  actually  signed. 

In  the  ordinary  life  of  the  nation,  political 
doctrines  are  discussed  much  as  they  are  in  a 
club.  The  alternatives  suggest  themselves  and 
are  weighed  by  the  individual.  On  many  ques- 
tions there  is  never  agreement,  and  on  few  is 
there  complete  agreement.  One  aspect  appeals 
to  one  group  and  is  reiterated  by  that  group  on 
all  occasions.  Each  different  aspect  has  its  ad- 
herents, and  action  depends  upon  counting 
votes,  not  by  attaining  even  approximate 
unanimity.  The  reasons  that  control  belief  are 
approximately  those  that  would  appeal  to  the 
individuals,  that  do  in  fact  appeal  to  the  indi- 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  205 

viduals.  These  are  first,  the  instincts,  which 
determine  primarily  what  one  desires  to  be- 
lieve ;  second,  tradition  in  the  community,  which 
not  only  influences  desire  but  also  determines 
what  one  shall  believe  to  be  true;  and,  finally, 
the  experience  of  the  individual,  including  the 
results  of  personal  observation  and  reports 
from  others  on  experiments  and  observa- 
tions. In  the  process  of  development  of  belief, 
new  observations  are  brought  in  by  written  con- 
tributions or  by  the  speaker  on  the  platform 
or  in  the  political  assembly,  and  the  possible 
interpretations  of  the  facts  and  their  most  prob- 
able bearing  upon  the  course  of  future  action 
are  considered.  All  these  influences  serve  to 
modify  the  conclusion  of  the  individuals  and  of 
the  group  as  the  sum  of  individuals.  In  all  of 
this  the  nation  thinks  only  as  the  individuals 
that  compose  it  think.  To  be  sure  the  indi- 
vidual would  not  think  as  he  does  were  he  not 
a  member  of  the  nation,  just  as  he  would  not 
think  as  he  does  did  he  not  possess  the  instincts 
that  he  does.  But  the  suggestions  all  come  from 
individuals,  the  acceptance  of  the  suggestion  is 
by  the  individuals.  As  Cooley  has  said,  all 
thinking,  even  the  most  individual,  is  a  social 
process,  but  it  is  social  as  a  cooperation  of  in- 
dividuals not  as  a  process  in  a  super-individual 
mind.  Only  in  moments  of  great  excitement  is 


206    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

the  thought  of  the  individual  in  a  nation  pro- 
foundly different  from  what  the  thinking  would 
be  of  a  man  in  a  medium  as  little  social  as  pos- 
sible, the  thinking  of  the  traditional  hermit, 
e.  g.,  whose  society  is  the  written  communica- 
tions of  past  generations.  Even  then,  the  pro- 
cess is  the  same  as  ever,  the  only  difference  is 
in  the  greater  prominence  of  the  instinctive  ele- 
ments, and  the  tendency  for  the  loudly  pro- 
claimed conclusions  of  the  few  to  dominate  the 
belief  of  the  many. 

It  is  in  the  field  of  action  and  feeling  that  the 
group  most  nearly  approaches  an  individual  en- 
tity in  its  organization.  If  we  return  to  our  an- 
alogy with  the  individual,  it  is  the  voluntary 
processes  and  the  closely  interrelated  emotional 
processes  that  may  be  most  easily  studied  by 
the  objective  method.  In  fact,  even  in  the  indi- 
vidual, aside  from  a  little  more  definite  knowl- 
edge of  motives,  one  knows  about  as  much  about 
acts  and  emotions  in  another  as  in  one's  self. 
Even  the  motives  are  not  always  more  clear  to 
the  actor  than  to  the  observer.  The  action  of  the 
crowd  is  merely  the  action  of  the  individuals 
that  compose  it.  The  individual  movement  de- 
pends upon  the  reception  of  a  stimulus.  This 
stimulus  arouses  the  movement  most  frequently 
connected  with  it,  its  habitual  response,  or  an 
instinctive  response.  When  several  responses 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  207 

compete,  as  when  the  most  frequent  response 
would  produce  an  effect  obviously  undesirable, 
selection  must  be  made  between  them.  It  is  here 
alone  that  conscious  guidance  is  of  value  or  is 
effective  in  any  degree.  Even  in  the  individual 
this  guidance  is  exerted  first  by  other  stimuli 
which  are  also  affecting  the  man  at  the  mo- 
ment, or  by  consideration  of  the  desirability  of 
the  probable  effects  of  the  acts.  These  effects 
are  desirable  either  because  they  have  a  direct 
instinctive  appeal,  or  have  an  appeal  that  is  in- 
directly instinctive,  because  they  are  approved 
by  the  society  in  which  the  man  lives.  To  act 
in  a  way  to  meet  social  approval  is  instinctively 
agreeable. 

The  acts  of  a  nation  are  controlled  by  the 
same  laws.  The  difference  is  to  be  found,  first, 
in  the  belief  that  a  nation  may  make  right  what 
would  be  wrong  for  an  individual.  This  can 
be  seen  in  the  mere  fact  of  war.  A  nation  may 
kill  by  the  wholesale,  although  killing  is  for- 
bidden to  the  individual  under  other  circum- 
stances. This  is,  of  course,  in  part  a  survival, 
in  part  it  seems  to  be  a  matter  of  necessity.  In 
connection  with  war  a  nation  will  justify  what 
the  individual  without  casuistry  would  not.  The 
atrocities  in  Belgium  were  based  on  the  deliber- 
ate theory  that  terrorism  was  the  easiest  way 
to  conquer  and  to  repress  revolt.  Coupled  with 


208     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

this  there  seems  to  have  been  a  belief  that  all 
tortures  inflicted  upon  women  or  children,  upon 
prisoners  and  defenseless  men  were  done  to  the 
glory  of  the  fatherland  and  so  were  to  be  ex- 
cused if  not  glorified.  The  looting  and  rape 
were  a  suitable  reward  for  men  who  were  sacri- 
ficing everything  for  the  fatherland.  The 
peculiar  conditions  and  the  general  approval  of 
the  country  excused  the  most  revolting  exhibi- 
tion of  primitive  instincts. 

The  nation,  like  the  mob,  may  by  the  common 
approval  of  what  would  ordinarily  be  con- 
demned, make  possible  acts  that  would  not  be 
possible  to  the  single  man.  The  belief  that  the 
survival  of  the  nation  is  more  important  than 
the  survival  of  any  individual  has  been  used 
not  infrequently  to  justify  acts  for  which  the  in- 
dividual could  find  no  warrant.  This  exalta- 
tion of  the  nation  makes  a  matter  of  pride 
what  otherwise  would  be  most  reprehensible. 
The  soldier  is  esteemed  for  an  act  no  more  es- 
sential than  that  for  which  the  hangman  is  held 
in  contempt.  In  this  sense,  the  will  of  the  na- 
tion enforced  by  slowly  developed  ideals  and 
ambitions  controls  the  acts — may  at  times  be 
said  pictorially  to  constitute  the  will  of  the  in- 
dividual. In  this  sense  will  means  no  more 
than  the  system  of  ideals  that  impel  or  justify 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  209 

the  action.    The  real  execution  is  by  relatively 
few  members. 

The  nearest  approach  in  modern  times  to  the 
actual  movement  of  the  nation  as  a  whole  is 
seen  in  the  registration  for  the  draft  in  Great 
Britain  and  America.  Both  of  these  countries 
had  abhorred  any  interference  with  the  will  of 
the  individual.  Only  when  the  crisis  came  that 
could  be  met  in  no  other  way,  was  compulsory 
service  resorted  to  in  Great  Britain.  America 
profited  by  the  experience  of  Great  Britain  at 
once  on  entering  the  war.  In  both  countries 
the  response  was  direct  and  immediate,  with 
practically  no  necessity  for  resort  to  compul- 
sion. Individuals  as  a  whole  appreciated  the 
fairness  of  a  selection  on  the  basis  of  capacity 
for  service,  and  obeyed  the  first  summons  with 
pride.  Here  again  national  ideals  may  be  said 
to  have  provided  the  motives  and  impelling 
force,  while  the  .acts  were  performed  by  numer- 
ous individuals.  After  all,  the  motives  are  the 
essential  elements  in  the  initiation  of  any  ac- 
tion. They  constitute  what  is  essentially  the 
will  of  the  individual.  When  they  are  shared 
by  a  nation  as  a  whole  and  result  in  action  by  a 
large  proportion  of  the  members,  it  might  be 
said  that  they  constitute  action  of  the  whole 
as  truly  as  some  central  idea,  which  excites  the 


210     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

motion  of  certain  muscles  of  the  body,  consti- 
tutes the  will  of  the  single  man. 

In  moments  of  excitement  the  individual  in 
the  nation  is  like  the  individual  in  the  crowd 
in  so  far  as  he  is  more  likely  to  accept  the  ideals 
and  aims  as  his  own  than  he  would  be  were  he 
alone.  But  it  is  inconceivable  that  he  ever 
should  be  alone,  and  all  that  we  have  as  an  out- 
come of  the  discussion  of  the  will  of  the  nation 
is  that  the  will  is  a  result  of  the  action  of  com- 
mon ideals  upon  the  separate  individuals  who 
compose  the  nation,  that,  while  the  individual 
accepts  these  ideals  because  they  appeal  to  his 
judgment,  they  appeal  to  his  judgment  because 
he  is  part  of  the  nation,  and  both  judgment  and 
action  are  an  expression  of  the  social  instincts 
and  of  the  fact  that  the  man  has  been  reared 
and  been  trained  in  a  nation. 

In  the  acts  of  the  nation  in  ordinary  times 
when  the  individuals  are  not  in  sight  of  each 
other,  even  this  exaggeration  of  normal  laws  is 
not  present.  The  opinion  of  the  nation  is  en- 
forced through  the  papers,  but  these  present 
urgings  to  opposed  actions  as  often  as  proclaim 
the  unanimous  decision  of  the  whole.  It  is  only 
in  the  popular  assemblies  that  there  is  any  op- 
portunity for  the  action  of  the  forces  peculiar 
to  the  mob,  and  in  well  ordered  democracies, 
these  assemblies  are  seldom  controlled  by  the 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  211 

acts  of  their  fellows.  They  constantly  remem- 
ber the  fact  that  they  are  responsible  for  re- 
election to  their  distant  constituencies,  and  they 
try  rather  to  formulate  in  their  speeches  what 
they  believe  to  be  the  opinions  of  those  distant 
and  scattered  individuals  than  to  act  on  the 
spur  of  the  moment  under  the  influence  of  their 
fellows  exerted  either  in  speeches  or  in  the 
quiet  conversation  of  the  committee  room  or 
lobby.  Even  the  French  Assembly  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary period  was  affected  only  by  the  phys- 
ical presence  of  the  mob,  rarely  by  the  eloquence 
of  its  own  members.  The  acts  of  the  nation 
show  no  greater  evidence  of  a  common  mind  or 
common  will  than  do  the  acts  of  the  individual. 
The  acts  all  start  with  some  individual,  are 
taken  up  and  executed  by  other  individuals. 
There  is  no  more  a  common  will  in  the  specific 
sense  than  there  is  a  common  arm  or  a  common 
trunk. 

In  the  metaphorical  sense  most  of  the  acts  of 
individuals  whether  in  the  crowd  or  separately 
are  determined  by  social  influences.  The  ideals 
that  determine  the  individual  are  the  ideals  of 
the  nation  or  the  community.  This  means  on 
strict  analysis  that  they  are  ideals  that  have 
been  stated  by  some  one  man,  accepted  by 
many  others,  and  now  pass  practically  unques- 
tioned. They  are  enforced  by  the  approval  of 


212     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

acts  that  conform  to  them  by  the  majority  of 
individuals.  Failure  to  live  up  to  them  and, 
more  definitely,  action  in  opposition  to  them  is 
punished  by  disapproval.  Approval  and  disap- 
proval again  are  often  expressed  in  very  indefi- 
nite ways.  It  may  be  no  more  than  the  shrug 
of  the  shoulders  as  a  friend  tells  what  he  has 
done.  In  the  crowd  the  offender  may  be  hooted 
at  or  cheered.  In  most  cases  the  individual  is 
influenced  more  by  what  he  thinks  other  indi- 
viduals are  thinking  or  might  be  thinking  than 
by  what  is  said  or  done.  This  control  is  the 
more  effective  in  that  it  works  in  advance  of 
action.  All  that  the  nation  does  is  to  express 
more  clearly  the  ideals  that  are  latent  in  all. 
Again  only  in  moments  of  excitement  will  the 
whole  completely  dominate  the  units  and  then 
only  through  the  force  of  the  social  instincts 
acting  in  greater  strength  because  of  the  visi- 
ble presence  of  the  members  of  the  group. 

The  emotions  of  the  crowd,  too,  are  the  emo- 
tions of  the  individuals.  True  again  that  the 
emotions  of  a  man  are  easily  aroused  when  he 
becomes  part  of  a  gathering.  When  the  au- 
dience is  fully  under  control  a  speaker  can 
arouse  laughter  by  a  story  or  remark  that  would 
seem  in  none  too  good  taste  when  spoken  by  an 
individual  of  the  group.  The  enthusiasm  of  a 
crowd  in  a  good  cause  and  the  anger  or  venge- 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  213 

ful  spirit  of  the  crowd  in  a  bad  cause  are  like- 
wise aroused  more  easily  than  are  similar  emo- 
tions in  a  small  group  or  tete-a-tete.  If  we  ac- 
cept the  modern  notion  that  emotion  is  funda- 
mentally only  a  slight  movement,  and  a  move- 
ment instinctively  determined,  it  would  follow 
that  emotion,  too,  is  always  an  individual  pro- 
cess, but  an  individual  process  that  would  be 
particularly  susceptible  to  exaggeration  by  the 
presence  of  the  crowd.  This  we  find  in  prac- 
tice. As  applied  to  the  nation,  the  emotions  are 
obvious  expressions  of  the  instinctive  responses 
to  the  common  appeals  of  ideals,  and  of  all  the 
endeavors  of  the  group.  One  thrills  at  the  story 
of  the  attainments  of  one's  fellow-countrymen, 
as  one  does  not  for  similar  deeds  of  foreigners ; 
one  feels  the  glow  of  exhilaration  as  one  is 
called  to  increased  endeavor  for  the  nation, 
whether  in  the  armed  conflict,  in  better  citizen- 
ship, or  in  self-denial  for  the  benefit  of  the  com- 
mon cause.  While  the  glow  is  due  to  the  changes 
in  the  body  of  each  individual,  the  cause  of  the 
response  is  to  be  found  in  the  community  of 
ideals  and  in  the  inherited  nervous  connections 
of  each  individual.  The  emotions  in  the  nation 
are  an  expression  of  the  social  instincts,  a  direct 
indication  of  the  tendencies  to  act  induced  by 
the  sight  and  thought  of  the  group.  They  are 
not  new  phenomena  of  the  social  life,  but  mere- 


214    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

ly  the  way  in  which  the  individual  becomes  di- 
rectly conscious  of  the  fact  that  he  is  a  social 
being — is  descended  from  a  race  that  has  acted 
with  his  fellows  and  is  now  likely  to  respond  in 
certain  ways  in  common  with  them. 

In  one  other  sense  does  the  nation  become  an 
emotional  unit.  It  becomes  the  center  of  ref- 
erence for  many  common  emotions.  The  mod- 
ern psychologist,  since  James  wrote  in  1884, 
has  emphasized  the  fact  that  emotions  are  in- 
stincts regarded  from  within,  that  as  the  ob- 
server sees  a  man  respond  in  certain  ways 
under  the  influence  of  inherited  tendencies,  the 
man  himself  feels  these  responses  and  many 
others  too  slight  to  be  noticed  by  the  observer 
as  masses  of  slight  movements.  If  we  group 
these  instincts  as  those  which  come  with  fur- 
therance of  activity  and  those  which  arise  from 
the  thwarting  of  activity,  the  one  pleasant,  and 
the  other  painful,  we  find  that  in  the  individual 
the  helpful  or  hindering  character  comes  to  be 
associated  not  with  the  benefit  to  the  physical 
being,  but  with  the  expansion  or  contraction  of 
one's  notion  of  one's  self,  a  pure  ideal.  One 
is  hurt  when  one  does  not  obtain  the  expected 
end,  one  is  pleased  when  one  develops  more  than 
this  anticipated  amount.  It  is  one's  notion  of 
one's  self  as  a  whole  which  is  furthered  or 
checked.  Most  emotions  are  aroused  in  the 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  215 

modern  individual  by  factors  which  affect  this 
imaginary  entity. 

With  the  development  of  the  nation  it  comes 
to  constitute  a  similar  center  of  emotional  ref- 
erence. The  individuals  who  compose  a  na- 
tion suffer  real  pain  when  it  is  in  any  way  in- 
jured, when  an  outsider  even  speaks  disparag- 
ingly of  it,  and  are  correspondingly  elated 
when  it  thrives,  when  it  grows  in  any  way.  A 
true  Britisher  feels  a  thrill  of  pride  when  he 
hears  that  the  sun  never  sets  upon  British  soil, 
that  the  sun  is  followed  in  its  course  by  the 
roll  of  the  morning  drum  of  British  garrisons. 
The  American,  however  humble,  is  never  left 
unmoved  by  the  statistics  of  billions  of  imports 
and  exports,  particularly  when  the  balance  is  in 
favor  of  America.  Neither  may  be  in  any  de- 
gree better  off  for  the  fact,  neither  thinks  of  the 
expense  that  may  rest  upon  him  for  the  attain- 
ment of  these  glories.  He  thrills  as  he  does  at 
his  own  success.  As  the  ideal  source  or  occa- 
sion of  emotion,  the  nation  is  as  real  an  entity 
as  a  person. 

It  is  one  form  of  this  emotional  reaction  to- 
wards the  nation,  what  we  call  the  national 
honor,  that  is  at  the  bottom  of  many  of  the  in- 
ternational difficulties,  as  Perla1  has  recently 
emphasized.  The  American  is  not  concerned 

1  Perla:     "What  is  National  Honor?"     1918. 


216    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

about  a  fisheries  dispute  or  any  trade  dispute 
bocause  the  outcome  may  affect  him.  He  feels 
an  emotion  merely  because  his  nation  may  suf- 
fer in  its  prestige  if  the  decision  goes  against 
him.  The  extension  of  national  territory  in  a 
modern  state  is  seldom  of  any  value  to  the  sepa- 
rate individuals  who  constitute  that  state.  They 
never  can  take  any  part  of  it  for  their  own  with- 
out the  same  compensation  to  the  owners  that 
they  would  have  had  to  pay  if  it  remained  under 
the  original  flag,  but  they  feel  a  pride  if  it  is 
expanded,  just  as  they  feel  aggrieved  if  the 
territory  is  in  any  way  diminished.  It  is  the 
same  pride  that  the  excessively  wealthy  feel 
when  they  add  to  their  property  even  if  it  is  al- 
ready more  than  sufficient  for  any  possible  need. 
The  additional  acquisition  may  mean  only  new 
cares  with  no  possible  increase  in  comfort,  but 
they  nevertheless  feel  pride  in  the  acquisition 
and  would  be  chagrined  were  they  beaten  in  the 
struggle  for  it. 

It  is  probably  this  development  of  an  entity 
which  serves  as  a  point  of  reference  for  the 
emotions  that  is  the  most  characteristic  and  the 
most  important  phase  of  the  development  of 
the  nation.  When  you  band  a  hundred  million 
men  together  who  will  be  elated  whenever  a  few 
square  miles  are  added  to  the  territory  of  that 
nation,  or  when  it  gains  any  prestige  in  the 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  217 

financial,  intellectual,  or  moral  world  and  will 
grow  angry  when  it  is  slighted  or  suffers  loss 
or  even  insult  in  any  form,  you  have  a  force 
that  must  be  reckoned  with  for  good  or  for  ill. 
The  emotions  have  an  enormous  effect  upon  the 
actions  of  the  state  as  a  whole  and  of  the  indi- 
viduals that  compose  it.  You  can  argue  as  did 
the  pacifist  before  America  entered  the  war 
that  each  individual  would  be  just  as  well  off 
if  a  German  army  were  occupying  New  York 
and  competent  German  civil  servants  adminis- 
tering our  national  and  state  affairs.  But  even 
if  the  loyal  American  accepts  your  statements 
of  the  effects  as  true  he  will  reply  ' '  a  thousand 
times  better  to  be  inefficiently  administered  as 
we  are  or  even  to  be  destroyed  altogether  than 
to  have  the  best  German  or  any  foreign  official 
prescribing  in  detail  the  private  or  political  af- 
fairs of  the  smallest  portion  of  our  territory." 
It  is  the  fact  that  the  nation  is  a  center  about 
which  develop  such  emotions  as  these  which 
constitutes  it  a  real  force,  perhaps  the  strong- 
est force  in  the  modern  world. 

What  really  counts  in  naturalization  is  hav- 
ing the  individual  accept  the  new  nation  as  the 
center  for  him  of  these  emotions.  When  he  can 
share  them  he  is  in  truth  a  member  of  the  new 
nation.  It  is  the  development  of  a  common 
ideal  in  a  mass  of  individuals  that  constitutes 


218     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

the  appearance  of  a  new  nation.  All  of  the 
other  effects  of  nationality  may  be  regarded 
either  as  springing  from  this  or  contributing 
to  it.  The  acceptance  of  the  general  ideal 
carries  with  it  willingness  to  strive  for  the 
minor  ideals  that  are  accepted  by  other  mem- 
bers of  the  nation — the  respect  for  freedom,  for 
the  standard  of  morality  and  cleanliness  that  is 
held  by  the  other  individuals  in  the  nation.  On 
the  active  side  it  implies  willingness  to  make 
sacrifices  that  the  nation  may  be  maintained  in 
all  of  its  phases  and  in  all  of  its  mental  and 
physical  characteristics. 

The  existence  of  this  ideal  in  so  strong  a  form 
has  also  disadvantages  when  nations  come  into 
conflict.  One  can  no  more  see  one 's  nation  give 
up  to  another  what  seems  to  be  an  advantage 
than  give  it  up  for  one's  self.  Many  modern 
wars  and  most  dangers  of  war  have  arisen  over 
questions  that  affected  the  pride  or  the  honor 
of  nations  rather  than  their  interests.  It  is 
not  so  much  the  loss  of  territory  for  the  value 
of  the  territory  as  it  is  the  loss  of  national 
prestige  involved  in  the  abandonment  of  terri- 
tory that  galls  and  arouses  the  anger  of  na- 
tions. It  was  the  insult  to  the  flag  in  the  blow- 
ing up  of  the  Maine  rather  than  sympathy  for 
the  suffering  Cubans  that  started  the  Spanish- 
American  war.  It  was  the  demand  for  an  abro- 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  219 

gation  of  sovereignty  on  the  part  of  Serbia 
that  the  German  and  Austrian  used  to  start  the 
world  war.  It  was  quite  as  much  the  fact  that 
the  Boers  refused  to  accept  the  demands  of 
Great  Britain  and  the  consequent  apparent  con- 
tempt for  her  that  was  as  important  as  any  de- 
sire for  territory  or  sympathy  for  the  owners 
of  Transvaal  mines  in  really  causing  the 
Boer  war.  The  instances  may  be  multiplied 
until  it  seems  that  material  damage,  no  matter 
how  great,  would  seldom  start  a  war  were  it 
not  for  the  purely  emotional  reactions  that  are 
produced  by  injury  to  national  pride  and  na- 
tional honor.  Rationally  regarded,  a  war  al- 
ways costs  more  than  it  is  worth.  Once  started 
on  a  course  of  aggression,  the  same  pride  will 
never  permit  either  nation  in  the  controversy 
to  draw  back.  Many  wars,  no  doubt,  arise  from 
unsuccessful  bluffing.  When  a  threat  has  once 
been  made  it  is  almost  invariably  carried 
through  for  fear  of  loss  of  national  respect  if 
it  be  withdrawn.  Millions  in  men  and  billions 
in  money  will  be  lost  before  this  national  pride 
will  be  permitted  to  suffer. 

It  may  be  objected  that,  after  all,  the  national 
entity  has  no  existence  outside  of  the  minds 
that  create  and  accept  it,  that  no  physical  pain 
or  material  harm  would  come  to  any  one  if  this 
ideal  should  be  permitted  to  disappear.  This 


220    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

must  be  granted.  .  At  the  same  time,  since  it 
does  exist  and  men  are  willing  to  make  sacri- 
fices to  maintain  it,  it  is  a  real  force.  The  same 
objection  might  be  made  to  the  existence  of 
the  individual  personality.  That,  too,  most 
modern  psychologists  regard  as  largely  a  con- 
cept, an  ideal  that  has  no  definite  relation  to 
physical  existence.  A  man's  notion  of  himself 
is  in  large  part  merely  the  man's  idea  of  what 
others  think  of  him.  He  might  be  just  as  well 
off  without  many  of  the  ideal  characteristics  or 
possessions  that  he  ascribes  to  himself.  James 
asserted  that  many  Bostonians  would  be  much 
happier  if  they  gave  up  believing  that  they  were 
musical  experts  and  stayed  away  from  the 
operas  that  they  pretend  to  enjoy,  if,  i.  e.,  they 
cut  off  from  their  idea  of  themselves  the  pre- 
tence that  they  were  musical.  Most  of  one 's  emo- 
tions are  connected  with  ideal  elements  that 
have  nothing  to  do  with  real  suffering  or  real, 
i.  e.,  bodily,  pain.  The  self  of  which  we  are 
proud  is  as  much  a  mental  construction  as  is  the 
nation,  yet  most  of  our  endeavors  are  devoted 
to  furthering  this  notion  of  ourselves,  to  in- 
creasing a  reputation  for  wealth,  for  charity, 
for  accomplishment  in  some  line.  When  some 
slight  is  cast  upon  a  capability  which  we  believe 
that  we  have,  but  really  do  not  have,  we  are  as 
much  disturbed  emotionally  as  if  we  were 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  221 

robbed  of  a  real  possession.  Personal  honor 
and  prestige  are  all  of  a  piece  with  national 
honor.  In  many  respects  the  nation  is  as  real 
as  is  the  self.  Both  are  in  large  measure  ideal 
constructions,  but  when  constructed,  much  of 
thought  and  action  and  practically  all  of  emo- 
tion both  in  the  individual  and  in  society  are 
controlled  by  or  derived  from  them. 

Altogether,  then,  it  is  clear  that  the  social 
mind  is  merely  a  metaphor  and  has  no  real 
existence.  Nevertheless  the  phenomena  that  it 
is  used  to  designate  are  real.  The  nation  is  in  a 
sense  a  mental  aggregate,  and  ability  to  develop 
and  be  controlled  by  common  ideals  and  to  carry 
out  acts  in  common  is  the  prime  criterion  of  the 
existence  of  a  nation.  In  many  ways  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  individuals  who  compose  the  nation 
may  be  regarded  as  the  products  of  the  nation. 
The  nation  certainly  provides  a  medium  in 
which  the  ideal  of  the  individual  may  develop 
to  the  fullest  extent,  the  nation  spurs  him  to 
accomplishments  that  he  would  not  otherwise 
be  capable  of,  and  restrains  divergent  tenden- 
cies that  he  would  be  liable  to  in  another  envir- 
onment. The  thought  is,  however,  always  the 
thought  of  an  individual,  the  acts  are  the  acts 
of  individuals,  the  emotions  are  reverberations 
in  the  bodies  of  individuals.  Even  the  nation 
that  is  regarded  as  providing  the  ideals  is  a 


222     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

mass  of  individuals,  and  the  ideals  have  no 
existence  except  as  they  are  expressed  by  indi- 
viduals, or  as  they  are  pictured  by  individuals 
as  present  in  the  mind's  eye  of  other  individ- 
uals. Even  the  social  instincts  that  give  force 
to  the  ideals,  and  make  possible  social  disci- 
pline, and  the  common  thought  and  action  in 
the  nation  are  embodied  in  the  nervous  systems 
of  individuals.  They  are  individual  possessions 
and  exist  only  in  the  individuals.  What  makes 
the  group  behave  as  a  nation  is  the  qualities  of 
the  individuals  that  compose  it,  not  a  single 
superindividual  entity. 

True,  nationality  is  an  affair  of  the  spirit, 
not  of  the  body;  it  is  an  ideal  rather  than  a 
material  inheritance  of  certain  races  of  men; 
it  is  a  spirit  incarnated  in  individuals.  Again, 
it  grows  with  experience,  gains  force  with  suc- 
cess, is  dispirited  or  weakened  by  failure,  even 
though  it  may  be  strong  in  adversity,  but  the 
experiences  are  the  experiences  of  individuals, 
known  and  appreciated  by  individuals,  and  ef- 
fective only  in  so  far  as  these  individuals  make 
them  appeal  to  others. 

While,  then,  the  nation  is  not  a  single  indi- 
vidual or  a  mind  in  the  literal  sense  of  the  word, 
there  is  one  sense  in  which  the  nation  does 
assume  many  of  the  aspects  of  a  person.  This 
is  as  an  ideal  center  of  reference  for  emotions. 


THE  NATIONAL  MIND  223 

The  nation,  as  a  concept,  is  a  reality.  About 
it  the  emotions  of  the  members  cluster.  Increas- 
ing or  improving  it  in  any  way  gives  them 
emotions  of  joy,  impairing  its  existence  or  ef- 
ficiency in  any  way  gives  sorrow  or  anger  very 
much  as  does  the  waxing  or  waning  of  the  indi- 
vidual's own  ideal  self.  In  fact,  as  ideals  for 
emotional  reference,  the  self  and  the  nation  are 
very  much  on  a  par.  Both  are  largely  social 
products,  are  developed  through  experience  in 
harmony  with  social  standards,  and  while 
neither  can  be  said  to  have  material  existence, 
they  are  both  more  effective  in  controlling  the 
action  of  the  individuals  than  any  material 
forces.  In  this  and  in  this  alone  does  the  nation 
resemble  a  mind.  It  is  or  has  a  self  in  much 
the  same  sense  that  the  man  is  or  has  a  self. 


CHAPTEE  VIII 

THE  NATION  AS  IDEAL 

WE  have  come  to  the  conclusion  whenever  we 
have  examined  any  theory  of  the  nation  that  it 
is  a  number  of  individuals  held  together  first 
by  the  common  social  instincts  of  mankind ;  gre- 
gariousness,  sympathy,  and  fear  of  the  group 
on  the  one  hand,  and  by  the  acceptance  of  a 
common  group  of  ideals  on  the  other.  Of  these 
the  instincts  would  explain  why  there  is  a 
grouping  at  all,  but  they  would  not  explain  why 
a  man  accepted  one  group  rather  than  another. 
It  is  the  existence  of  the  common  group  of 
ideals  that  determines  the  differences  between 
groups.  That  a  crowd  should  gather  and  follow 
a  leader  to  the  end  he  suggests  may  be  due  to 
the  instinct  of  gregariousness  for  the  gather- 
ing; to  fear,  by  the  individual  of  the  mass  as  a 
whole  for  the  acceptance  of  the  leader's  sugges- 
tions, and  for  the  tendencies  to  follow  the 
crowd.  But  such  a  temporary  gathering  leaves 
no  after  grouping,  no  tendency  to  gather  again, 
no  sense  of  belonging  to  a  common  body.  There 
may  be  a  beginning  in  a  desire  to  recall  the  com- 

224 


THE  NATION  AS  IDEAL  225 

mon  experiences,  but  one  single  common  action 
would  give  relatively  little  even  of  that.  There 
is  no  persisting  unity. 

What  is  characteristic  of  the  nation  is  the 
existence  of  common  ideals  in  all  of  its  mem- 
bers. The  group  must  have  been  united  for 
some  time  if  the  ideals  are  to  have  a  chance  to 
develop  or  even  to  be  accepted  by  the  great 
mass.  Ideals  develop  gradually.  For  a  nation 
they  require  either  a  long  period  of  life  in  work- 
ing together,  or  a  short  period  of  intense 
endeavor  and  strong  emotion,  if  they  are  to 
reach  any  intensity  sufficient  to  produce  marked 
effect.  The  possession  of  ideals  and  willing- 
ness to  act  to  maintain  them  are  what  constitute 
the  common  consciousness  or  spirit  of  the  na- 
tion that  we  find  referred  to  so  frequently  by 
the  different  writers  and  which  is  so  little  or 
so  loosely  defined. 

In  the  last  chapter  we  saw  that  the  sense  in 
which  a  nation  could  be  assigned  a  corporate 
existence,  or  something  incorporeal  that  corre- 
sponded in  some  degree  to  a  mind,  or  to  a  self, 
was  the  existence  in  the  different  individuals 
of  a  common  ideal.  The  most  striking  effect 
of  an  ideal  is  that  it  serves  to  give  to  an 
individual  an  end  or  aim  that  he  could  not 
acquire  by  virtue  of  his  own  knowledge,  by  his 
own  devices.  In  this  sense  most  of  the  directing 


forces  in  society  are  the  results  of  ideals.  I 
have  called  their  effect  social  pressure  in  other 
volumes.  They  constitute  the  ideal  of  attain- 
ment for  the  members  of  the  group  in  every 
possible  respect.  In  the  ordinary  study  of  a 
school  boy,  we  find  that  he  tries  to  excel  because 
he  respects  the  ideals  set  by  his  teachers  and 
by  his  family  for  standing  well  in  the  subjects 
of  instruction.  In  a  school  in  which  the  ideal 
develops  of  slighting  work  and  obtaining  honors 
in  athletics  or  in  social  activities  only,  all  at- 
tempts to  keep  students  up  to  the  mark  in 
studies  will  fail.  In  a  wider  sphere  the  youth 
chooses  his  calling  because  of  the  esteem  in 
which  the  different  callings  are  held  in  the  com- 
munity in  which  he  lives,  or  in  his  immediate 
family.  Much  of  the  incentive  to  work  comes, 
from  the  desire  to  reach  distinction  in  the 
chosen  profession,  and  the  subjects  in  which  he 
shall  work  are  selected  because  they  are  pre- 
scribed for  the  profession  or  are  assumed  to 
be  necessary  to  the  members  of  that  profession. 
The  ideals  of  attainment  in  every  field  of 
social  life  show  the  same  laws  and  tendencies. 
We  have  pointed  out  that  what  shall  constitute 
wealth  depends  upon  the  ideals  of  the  commu- 
nity. It  may  be  the  ability  to  live  on  nothing 
of  the  anchorite,  it  may  be  the  mere  possession 
of  a  billion  dollars,  reputed  to  be  the  ideal  of 


THE  NATION  AS  IDEAL  227 

one  ultra-wealthy  American,  it  may  be  the  ac- 
quisition of  the  largest  number  of  rare  books 
or  rare  stamps,  or  paintings,  or  it  may  be  the 
shell  money  of  the  South  Sea  Islander.  It  is 
wealth,  primarily  because  it  has  been  fixed  upon 
as  desirable  by  the  men  who  constitute  the  par- 
ticular society,  and  secondarily  because  it  has 
value  in  exchange,  because  others  are  willing  to 
give  other  desirable  and  necessary  things  for 
it.  Both  depend  upon  the  existence  of  common 
ideals. 

In  the  ethical  and  legal  relations  very  much 
the  same  rule  holds.  What  shall  be  proper  for 
a  society  is  fundamentally  a  matter  of  the  ex- 
istence of  ideals,  in  spite  of  the  apparent  fixity 
of  most  of  these  prescriptions.  Many  of  the 
things  fixed  seem  important  for  survival  or  for 
happiness,  but  many  others  are  absolutely  in- 
different to  both  and  may  even  be  uncomfort- 
able if  not  positively  harmful  or  painful.  It  is 
quite  as  improper  and  meets  quite  as  much 
social  disapproval  for  a  woman  to  smoke  a 
cigarette  as  to  lie ;  in  fact,  unless  the  lie  is  par- 
ticularly flagrant  or  on  a  matter  of  great  im- 
portance, most  women  in  an  American  small 
town  or  outside  of  the  wealthiest  or  more 
debauched  classes  would  much  rather  lie  than 
smoke,  although  the  difference  from  any  ra- 
tional consideration  between  the  smoking  of 


228     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

man  and  woman  cannot  be  discovered.  Simi- 
larly, many  a  man  of  the  educated  class  would 
much  prefer  to  be  detected  in  a  minor  dis- 
honesty than  in  saying  "ain't,"  which  has  no 
essential  value  other  than  as  a  sign  of  belonging 
to  a  social  class.  Many  of  the  compulsions  that 
are  grouped  as  moral  in  opposition  to  mere 
social  conventions  are  enforced  in  the  same 
way.  In  fact,  the  difference  between  a  social 
convention  and  morals  is  a  finely  graded  one. 
Many  of  my  readers  would  agree  that  smoking 
a  cigarette  is  a  matter  of  morals  rather  than 
of  manners.  The  prescriptions  are  effective 
and  the  punishment  of  social  disapprobation  is* 
real.  One  may  even  say  social  disapproval  is 
the  most  severe  punishment  and  probably  con- 
stitutes the  really  effective  element  in  all  pun- 
ishment. Any  society  is  held  together  and  most 
of  the  individual  acts  are  in  some  degree  deter- 
mined by  the  force  of  these  ideals. 

The  ideals  that  exert  an  influence  within  a 
nation  are  in  part  common  to  society  every- 
where, and  in  part  are  peculiar.  The  common 
effects  represented  in  the  nation  are  those  that 
enforce  the  ordinary  standards  of  decency  and 
morality  (decency  and  morality  being  words 
that  indicate  the  accepted  standards  of  mankind 
as  a  whole).  Some  of  these  are  common  to  the 
same  class  in  all  nations  although  they  may  not 


THE  NATION  AS  IDEAL  229 

be  binding  upon  the  nation  as  a  whole.  Such, 
for  example,  would  be  dressing  for  dinner,  the 
avoidance  of  inelegancies  in  language,  certain 
standards  of  personal  hygiene.  Others,  such 
as  the  ten  commandments  or  the  modern  sub- 
stitutes for  them,  would  be  fairly  generally  ac- 
cepted and  they  are  regarded  as  applicable  to 
all  classes.  The  punishments  are  the  same 
forms  of  disapproval. 

One  might  enumerate  the  peculiarities  of  the 
ideals  of  different  nations.  Some  of  these  are 
important,  as,  e.  g.,  the  attitude  towards  liberty. 
It  has  been  pointed  out  in  an  earlier  chapter 
that  there  are  minor  variations  even  between 
the  most  similar  modern  democratic  nations. 
Liberty  is  essentially  freedom  from  govern- 
mental interference  with  the  personal  conduct 
to  the  Briton ;  to  the  American,  it  is  more  nearly 
freedom  to  express  himself  on  political  ques- 
tions and  a  willingness  to  submit  to  almost  any 
detailed  control,  provided  he  may  impose  it 
on  himself  through  the  polls ;  to  the  Frenchman 
freedom  has  more  of  an  element  of  equality 
with  others  in  a  personal  way  and  less  of  the 
political  equality.  One  could  undoubtedly  find 
other  shades  of  difference  in  each  modern  na- 
tion, even  where  all  alike  were  enjoying  politi- 
cal freedom,  and  were  equally  impressed  with 
the  ideal  of  freedom. 


230     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

The  definite  political  ideals  also  vary  in  some 
degree.  This  can  be  most  readily  shown  by  the 
difference  in  the  organic  law,  or  at  least  in  the 
fundamental  phases  of  that  law  which  corre- 
sponds to  the  constitution.  On  the  whole,  it  is 
probably  safe  to  say  that  in  part  the  different 
systems  of  law  and  government  accomplish  the 
same  ends  by  different  means ;  in  part  they  ac- 
complish different  ends  by  the  same  means. 
Here  again  some  of  the  ends  are  set  by  the 
fundamental  human  instincts  common  to  all 
men,  others  depend  upon  ideals  that  have  grad- 
ually spread  from  the  countries  or  peoples  who 
first  developed  them  to  others  because  they  have 
an  instinctive  appeal  even  if  they  are  not  them- 
selves instinctive  in  character.  The  different 
methods  used  in  the  attainment  of  the  same 
ends,  as  differences  in  the  procedure  of  the 
courts,  are  to  be  explained  historically  in  large 
measure.  Most  go  back  to  the  acceptance  of 
the  Roman  or  the  English  Law.  The  changes 
are  to  be  regarded  as  due  to  the  attempt  to 
adjust  the  accepted  system  to  changing  condi- 
tions in  modern  developments  in  industry  and 
the  accessories  of  life.  They  express  what  we 
call  the  genius  of  the  people,  which  in  its  turn 
is  largely  dependent  upon  the  ideals  that  have 
developed  because  of  their  peculiar  character- 
istics and  the  environment  in  which  they  lived 


THE  NATION  AS  IDEAL  231 

and  of  the  experiences  to  which  they  have  been 
subjected. 

To  attempt  to  describe  these  ideals  for  the 
different  nations  would  require  a  treatise  on 
comparative  constitutional  law  as  the  out- 
growth of  the  history  and  native  endowment  of 
the  peoples,  a  subject  that  would  take  volumes. 
Granted  the  existence  of  these  varying  ideals, 
it  is  more  within  our  province  to  consider  their 
effects.  These  we  can  divide  into  two  groups ; 
one  which  corresponds  to,  if  it  is  not  in  part 
identical  with,  the  will  of  the  individual,  the 
other  which  is  more  closely  analogous  to  what 
we  call  the  self  of  the  individual,  the  ideal  of 
the  state  as  a  corporate  entity,  which  embodies 
the  hopes  of  the  people,  and  is  the  source  and 
object  of  their  common  emotions.  The  two  in 
a  measure  coincide,  for  unless  one  had  some 
notion  of  the  nation  as  a  corporate  entity,  as 
something  which  was  to  be  respected  and  even 
loved,  the  compelling  and  controlling  effect 
would  be  inappreciable. 

In  so  far  as  the  ideals  determine  the  will  of 
the  members  of  the  nation,  they  act  because  of 
the  instinctive  respect  felt  for  the  desires  and 
accepted  aims  of  the  larger  group.  The  state 
is  the  personification  of  public  opinion  with 
reference  to  the  affairs  of  the  nation.  What 
these  aims  are  cannot  always  be  stated,  but 


232    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

there  is  always  an  appeal  to  them  to  decide  all 
questions  of  state,  and  one  can  nearly  always 
decide  when  they  are  infringed  upon.  Those 
ideals  of  the  nation  are  best  typified  by  the 
British  constitution,  which  is  definite  enough 
to  serve  as  a  guide  for  government  in  all  of  its 
essential  general  lines  although  it  has  never 
been  formulated  in  words.  The  opposing  mem- 
bers at  least  always  know  when  it  has  been 
violated  even  if  there  is  no  agreement  as  to 
what  it  is.  It  controls  the  action  of  statesmen 
in  no  small  degree,  it  is  the  incentive  to  many 
of  the  actions  of  the  ordinary  voter,  it  is  the 
conscience  and  might  be  regarded  as  the  will 
of  the  British  nation  in  the  same  sense  that 
the  ideals  and  accepted  aims  of  the  individual 
constitute  his  will.  It  is  the  director  and  still 
more  the  gauge  of  all  actions. 

These  ideals  may  change  with  time  and  under 
the  influence  of  special  stress.  We  have  seen 
evidence  of  these  changes  over  long  periods  in 
the  history  of  the  development  of  nationalities. 
"We  can  see  the  same  sort  of  change  working 
over  short  periods  under  the  influence  of  special 
strains  in  the  change  or  temporary  abrogation 
of  the  British  constitution  when  the  power  of 
the  House  of  Lords  to  prevent  legislation  was 
given  up  recently,  or  in  the  numerous  changes 
that  were  made  by  common  consent  during  the 


THE  NATION  AS  IDEAL  233 

war.  In  the  American  constitution,  the  same 
changes  are  wrought  more  slowly  by  the  adop- 
tion of  amendments  and,  a  still  better  instance, 
by  the  immediate  effect  of  the  social  ideals  or  the 
social  conscience,  express  themselves  directly  in 
the  changes  in  judicial  decisions.  The  consti- 
tution, like  every  written  document,  is  suscep- 
tible of  many  interpretations,  and  the  change 
in  interpretation  has  amounted  in  many  cases 
to  a  rewriting  of  the  instrument.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion whether  the  writers  of  the  constitution 
would  have  recognized  it  when  it  had  been  in- 
terpreted by  Marshall,  and  certainly  Marshall 
would  not  recognize  it  as  it  stands  in  the  present 
interpretations  made  necessary  to  conform  to 
the  changed  social  conditions  and  the  more 
humane  attitude  that  man  takes  towards  the 
less  fortunate  members  of  society.  Still  more 
striking  are  the  effects  of  decisions  made  dur- 
ing the  war  when  the  lower  courts  and,  on  some 
points,  the  highest  have  held  to  be  constitutional 
acts  that  are,  to  the  lay  mind,  against  the  spirit 
of  all  earlier  interpretations  made  on  similar 
questions.  With  the  greater  development  of 
the  corporate  consciousness  then  comes  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  common  ideals  and  aims  as  law 
for  all  of  the  separate  members — the  courts 
recognize  as  constitutional  many  acts  of  the 
central  government  that  would  have  been  denied 


234    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  Some  of  these 
changes  are  made  consciously,  as  when  the  court 
decides  that  it  may  take  cognizance  of  social 
changes  and  the  advances  made  in  scientific 
knowledge;  others  are  the  imperceptible  effect 
of  the  experiences  that  come  to  the  judge  as  a 
man  and  a  citizen,  which  change  him  with  the 
rest  of  the  nation.  He  is  bound  to  think  and 
act  in  the  light  of  his  knowledge,  and  to  accept 
the  ideals  that  have  developed  in  the  com- 
munity. 

In  this  way  the  ideals  of  a  nation  enforce 
action  in  political  and  social  matters.  They 
compel  each  individual  to  act  up  to  or  at  least 
towards  the  ideal  of  conduct  in  the  selection  of 
candidates  for  office,  in  enforcing  upon  the  leg- 
islators the  measures  that  shall  represent  the 
standards  of  the  community  and  make  possible 
the  realization  of  them.  In  emergencies  they 
impel  citizens  to  go  forth  to  fight  that  the  nation 
and  its  ideals  may  be  maintained.  They  compel 
the  officers  of  the  state  to  attain  a  certain  stand- 
ard in  the  performance  of  their  duties  and,  as 
we  have  seen  in  the  case*  of  the  courts,  may 
determine  the  standards  and  in  part  at  least 
take  the  place  of  specific  laws  in  determining 
what  their  duties  shall  be  and  that  they  shall 
be  performed. 

Connected  with  this,  the  ideal  of  nationality 


THE  NATION  AS  IDEAL  235 

becomes  associated  with  many  incidental  stand- 
ards which  are  not  at  all  essential  to  the  main- 
tenance of  the  state  and  have  only  the  vaguest 
relation  to  the  political  ideals.  We  have  seen 
the  effect  of  these  on  the  naturalization  of  the 
immigrant  in  America.  There  are  standards  of 
dress,  of  wages,  of  food  and  hygiene,  even  of 
entertainment,  which  come  to  be  accepted  here 
as  American,  although  there  is  nothing  that 
would  prevent  them  from  being  regarded  as  a 
symbol  of  occidental  civilization  in  general. 
These  vary  in  many  respects  from  nation  to 
nation  and  become  associated  like  a  flag  or 
national  anthem  with  the  nation  itself.  They 
may  be  regarded  as  an  expression  of  the  na- 
tional solidarity,  even  if  the  nation  would  not 
be  significantly  changed  without  them. 

As  closely  connected  with  this  directing  effect 
of  the  national  ideals  which  may  be  regarded 
as  their  dynamic  phase,  we  must  also  reckon 
with  the  existence  of  a  static  aspect,  the  exis- 
tence of  the  nation  as  an  imagined  corporeal 
or  personified  existence.  It  is  this  aspect  that 
has  been  likened  in  the  last  chapter  to  the  indi- 
vidual self  as  ideal.  It  is  a  notion  or  concept 
of  the  nation  as  something  existing  as  a  unified 
thing  which  is  apart  from  the  individuals  but 
nevertheless  in  which  they  may  be  regarded  as 
participating  and  whose  glories  they  may  share. 


236     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

This  entity  is  what  gives  especial  solidarity  to 
the  nation.  To  the  member  of  the  nation  it  has 
a  real  existence  and  the  development  of  its  pres- 
tige is  a  real  end  towards  the  accomplishment 
of  which  he  is  willing  to  exert  effort.  Its  ex- 
istence depends  in  part  upon  the  history  of  the 
nation  and  the  accomplishments  of  the  glorious 
past.  A  nation  like  Great  Britain  with  a  con- 
tinuous history  of  successful  endeavor  has  a 
fuller  sense  of  real  existence  than  a  newly  de- 
veloped group  like  the  Ukraine,  although  it 
must  be  granted  that,  when  a  nation  develops 
quickly  through  great  peril  and  much  conflict, 
the  ideal  of  a  national  entity  acquires  great 
strength  in  a  comparatively  short  time.  An 
element  in  the  development  of  the  spiritual 
unity  and  of  national  pride  is  undoubtedly  the 
sense  of  past  successes. 

The  existence  of  a  common  literature  and 
hence  of  a  common  language  is  also  of  great 
importance.  We  have  seen  that  this  was  all 
that  held  the  Italian  nationality  together  for 
half  a  dozen  centuries,  and  it  undoubtedly  was 
largely  responsible  for  the  community  of  feel- 
ing among  the  German  states  before  the  de- 
velopment of  the  German  Empire  and  in  the 
reconstruction  of  that  empire.  But  this  is  not 
altogether  essential  as  is  seen  from  the  fact  that 
Switzerland  was  one  of  the  first  modern  nations 


THE  NATION  AS  IDEAL  237 

to  develop  a  sense  of  nationality  and  that  it  is 
among  the  states  that  have  a  very  strong  na- 
tionality, although  it  has  four  languages  in  ac- 
cepted use  in  different  parts  of  the  nation.  On 
the  other  hand  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain  have  a  common  language  and  largely  a 
common  literature,  although  they  are  definitely 
different  nationalities.  A  people's  literature 
gives  a  sense  of  community,  partly  because  it 
praises  the  nation  and  the  deeds  of  its  heroes, 
partly  because  it  is  itself  a  source  of  pride  and 
furnishes  a  center  about  which  the  emotionally 
toned  associates  may  cluster. 

Zimmern1  insists  that  a  nation  demands  for 
existence  a  home  land  with  which  the  ideals 
may  be  associated.  It  is  not  necessary  that  the 
people  live  in  this  home  land  in  any  great  num- 
bers, it  is  not  even  necessary  that  people  who 
inhabit  the  physical  territory  shall  be  free,  but 
he  asserts  that  each  nation  must  have  a  country 
of  its  own  if  it  is  to  be  a  real  nation.  There  is 
no  discussion  of  the  point,  although  it  is  as- 
serted each  time  that  he  defines  nationality. 
He  illustrates  by  the  Irishman  in  New  York 
who  has  never  seen  the  old  country  but  never- 
theless has  an  aspiration  for  nationality  be- 
cause he  can  picture  to  himself  the  actual 
physical  contours  of  the  beloved  old  home.  If 

1  Zimmern:     "Nationality  and  the  State,"  pp.  52  and  96. 


238     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

we  examine  the  statement  by  the  methods  of 
similarities  and  differences,  it  is  hard  to  find 
opportunity  of  reaching  a  conclusion.  Every 
nation  has  a  home  land  with  one  exception,  the 
Jew,  and  possibly  the  Gypsy.  One  may  be  said 
to  be  so  thoroughly  a  part  of  the  nation  in  which 
he  lives  that  there  is  little  chance  for  the  notion 
of  a  separate  nationality  to  develop ;  the  other 
probably  has  no  sense  of  nationality,  although 
there  may  be  a  consciousness  of  race.  The  Jews 
would  seem  to  an  outsider  to  have  a  sense  of 
nationality  that  has  persisted  marvelously, 
considering  the  fact  that  they  have  not  only  no 
independent  home  country  but  also  have  been 
scattered  over  the  earth  for  centuries.  Zim- 
mern  might  argue  that  the  bond  was  race  or 
religion  rather  than  nationality.  If  this  is 
granted  one  must  add  that  race  and  religion 
are  hard  to  separate  from  nationality  where  the 
three  go  together  and  in  any  case  there  is  much 
in  common  between  them  in  their  psychological 
laws  and  characteristics. 

Whether  Irishmen  would  retain  so  full  a  con- 
sciousness of  nationality  after  two  thousand 
years  away  from  a  home  country  even  if  that 
country  continued  to  have  its  present  degree  of 
physical  distinctness  is  a  question.  Certainly 
the  Irishman  in  America  shows  more  of  a  ten- 
dency to  be  lost  in  the  general  population  than 


THE  NATION  AS  IDEAL  239 

does  the  Jew,  and  if  amalgamation  continues 
at  the  present  rate,  an  Irishman  with  a  distinct 
consciousness  of  nationality  will  soon  be  very 
much  more  rare  than  a  Jew.  The  Irishman, 
too,  is  much  more  likely  to  remain  conscious  of 
the  land  of  his  origin  if  he  retain  his  religion 
than  if  he  change.  For  him,  too,  it  might  be 
argued  that  nation  and  religion  are  in  part, 
at  least,  one. 

"While  we  may  doubt  whether  a  native  land  is 
absolutely  necessary  for  the  existence  of  a  con- 
sciousness of  nationality,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  possession  of  a  common  land  is  an  impor- 
tant element  in  the  notion  of  nationality,  that 
the  concept  has  as  part  of  its  content  the  picture 
of  the  home  country,  and  that  part  of  the  long- 
ing of  the  exile  is  for  the  ancient  seat.  It 
matters  little  whether  the  land  be  beautiful  as 
Switzerland  or  as  unpleasant  as  the  deserts  of 
Arabia,  the  native  acquires  a  fondness  for  it 
that  aids  his  pride  while  at  home  and  makes 
him  long  for  it  when  at  a  distance.  This  pride 
may  be  aroused  by  the  natural  beauties,  as  in 
Switzerland,  or  by  the  architecture  and  other 
works  of  man  as  in  France  or  Italy.  Whatever 
it  is,  it  gives  a  body  to  his  ideal  and  a  point  of 
attachment  for  the  other  more  spiritual  or 
mental  elements.  Whether  the  strength  of  the 
national  feeling  depends  upon  the  size  of  the 


240     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

country  may  be  doubted,  but  certainly  an 
American  and  probably  a  Russian  is  influenced 
by  a  knowledge  of  the  vast  extent  of  his  land. 

What  is  most  important  in  the  ideal  is  the 
sense  of  the  mental  achievements,  the  civiliza- 
tion, the  education  and  technical  skill,  together 
with  the  physical  power  that  goes  with  it  all. 
These  combine  in  different  proportions  with  a 
notion  of  political  freedom.  All  fuse  in  the 
general  notion  or  symbol,  but  the  proportions 
differ  in  different  individuals  and  at  different 
times  in  the  same  individual.  The  ideal  reveals 
itself  in  consciousness  in  the  emotional  thrills 
that  come  whan  one  thinks  of  the  achievements, 
the  feeling  of  bitter  resentment  when  the  nation 
is  maligned,  and  the  sorrow  with  which  one 
hears  of  any  harm  or  deterioration  that  may 
affect  the  nation  or  any  part  of  it.  The  true 
nationalist  identifies  himself  with  his  nation  and 
rejoices  or  mourns  with  it  as  he  would  at  simi- 
lar changes  in  his  own  physical  or  social  status. 

This  ideal  as  a  social  entity  is  in  part  essen- 
tial to  and  identical  with  the  ideals  that  enforce 
the  dictates  of  society.  If  one  did  not  have  the 
pride  in  the  national  entity,  one  would  not  feel 
impelled  to  strive  to  meet  the  approval  of  the 
nation  in  many  political  and  related  ways.  One 
would  not  accept  the  standards  of  the  nation 
and  rise  to  them.  The  emotional  reaction  de- 


THE  NATION  AS  IDEAL  241 

pends  directly  upon  the  ideals;  the  success  of 
the  nation  or  its  failure  arouses  the  emotion  of 
the  individual,  just  as  does  his  own  success  or 
failure.  The  same  influences  that  give  rise  to 
the  emotion  also  serve  to  impel  to  action.  The 
voluntary  action  of  the  individual  is  determined 
by  very  many  of  the  same  forces  as  these  which 
control  the  action  of  the  nation.  What  appears 
as  the  symbol  of  the  nation  and  is  reverenced 
as  a  real  thing  is  also  in  part  identical  with  the 
factor  or  force  which  drives  the  members  of 
the  nation  to  obey  the  mandates  of  common 
opinion.  It  is  also  a  very  large  element  in  the 
individual  will. 

It  must  be  said  that  the  nation  is  only  one  of 
the  many  partial  systems  of  ideals  and  ideal- 
ized organizations  into  which  each  individual 
enters.  Each  group  that  forms  within  the  na- 
tion has  approximately  the  same  general  char- 
acteristics as  the  nation  as  a  whole.  The  church 
or  churches,  political  parties,  in  lesser  degree, 
the  occupations  and  professions,  and  even  the 
orders  of  society  come  to  constitute  similar 
entities  with  a  distinct  group  of  ideals  that  are 
enforced  upon  their  members  and  an  ideal  rep- 
resentation that  constitutes  the  end  of  en- 
deavor. A  good  party  man  is  only  less  con- 
cerned that  his  party  shall  win  than  that  his 
nation  shall  not  be  defeated.  Some  of  the 


242    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

members  of  the  socialist  party  are  less  con- 
cerned about  their  nation  than  about  the  party 
or  the  principles  for  which  the  party  stands. 
In  fact,  for  one  branch  the  nation  ceases  to  be 
of  any  value  and  should  be  dissolved  to  enter 
into  an  international  organization  of  those  that 
produce,  to  destroy  the  power  of  the  capitalists. 
Socialism  is  distinctly  anti-national,  although 
in  the  late  war  the  international  allegiance  was 
not  strong  enough  to  conquer  the  national  and 
prevent  war.  In  many  cases  a  man's  union  or 
his  class  may  assume  a  similar  ideal  existense 
as  a  definite  unit.  Still  smaller  units  about 
which  one 's  emotions  cluster  and  which  take  on 
the  character  of  real  entities  are  found  in  one 's 
factory  or  business  where  the  employees  are 
really  interested,  or  in  a  school,  or,  in  fact,  in 
any  organization  with  which  one  comes  into 
close  contact.  Some,  as  the  relation  between  the 
classes,  are  more  marked  by  hatred  of  the  other 
than  by  pride  or  liking  of  one's  own.  This 
holds  definitely  of  the  attitude  of  the  lower  to- 
wards the  higher,  although  in  the  upper,  par- 
ticularly in  the  older  countries  where  the  caste 
system  is  more  in  evidence,  there  is  pride  in 
the  group  as  such  that  holds  its  members  to 
certain  conventional  acts,  that  enforces  definite 
standards  of  action  in  essentials  as  well  as  in 


THE  NATION  AS  IDEAL  243 

incidentals.    To  be  worthy  of  the  name  ' '  gentle- 
man" is  a  conscious  ideal. 

Some  of  these  different  group  conscious- 
nesses overlap,  some  as  we  have  seen  are  antag- 
onistic. The  religiously  inclined  nationalist 
regards  any  disparagement  of  the  nation  as 
irreligious,  as  opposed  to  the  laws  of  God  as 
well  as  of  man,  while  he  may  also  regard  as- 
sumption of  the  national  attitude  towards 
religion  as  a  patriotic  duty.  This  holds  par- 
ticularly where  there  is  a  state  religion,  as  in 
England,  or  where  the  church  is  closely  con- 
nected with  a  national  protest  as  in  Ireland. 
In  Italy  and  in  France,  to  a  slighter  degree,  we 
find  nationalism  in  some  classes  connected  with 
opposition  to  the  church,  so  that  religious  be- 
lief becomes  in  some  degree  unpatriotic. 
Others  are  largely  indifferent  to  the  national 
ideals,  and  may  be  strong  or  weak  with  no 
reference  to  its  strength.  We  find  that  any 
individual  in  the  nation  is  always  a  member 
of  numerous  groups,  is  always  possessed  of  a 
number  of  group  consciousnesses.  Some  of 
these  will  exert  a  control  at  one  time,  others  at 
another.  Most  of  them  tend  to  become  organized 
so  that  there  shall  be  little  or  no  conflict  be- 
tween them.  When  a  man  is  in  one  environ- 
ment he  will  be  dominated  by  one  consciousness, 
in  another  he  will  be  under  the  influence  of 


244    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

another.    Many  of  these  may  fuse  into  a  single 
consciousness,  or  into  a  single  one  with  many 
phases.    In  every  case  one  may  have  a  number 
of  different  loyalties  more  or  less  equally  well 
developed.     Man's  social  consciousness  is  not 
single  but  is  a  complex  of  many  with  control 
by  a  number  of  different  groups  of  ideals,  and 
pride  in  a  number  of  different  organizations. 
One  may  well  ask  whether  the  existence  of 
these  minor  allegiances  will  affect  the  nature 
of  the  national  allegiance.     On  the  whole  the 
answer  is  no.    They  tend  to  strengthen  it.    Be- 
longing to  a  nation  is  not  a  matter  that  can  be 
daily  contemplated  and  regularly  emphasized. 
It  is  possible  on  the  other  hand  to  become  im- 
mediately aware  of  the  smaller  group  in  the 
school  and  of  such  larger  groups  as  the  politi- 
cal parties.     These  with  their  frequent  meet- 
ings serve  as  centers  of  real  interests  and  so 
increase  the  warmth  of  the  sense  of  community. 
All  of  these  lesser  groups  with  their  allegiances 
naturally  keep  alive  the  loyalty  to  the  larger 
whole.    The  meetings  of  the  party  all  involve 
references  to  the  solidarity  and  welfare  of  the 
nation  even  if  it  is  only  to  accuse  the  other 
party  of  threatening  that  welfare  or  solidarity. 
The  school,  the  church,  the  lodge,  and  all  other 
local  meetings  recognize  the  existence  of  the 
larger,   while   they   give   specific  emphasis   to 


THE  NATION  AS  IDEAL  245 

loyalty  to  the  lesser  whole ;  all  aid  rather  than 
hinder  the  development  of  a  national  loyalty, 
even  when  there  is  nothing  of  patriotism  in 
their  specific  teachings. 

We  may,  as  we  look  back  over  the  various 
considerations  so  far  mentioned,  see  that  na- 
tionality is  dependent  in  varying  degree  upon 
race,  upon  a  common  language,  a  common  his- 
tory with  the  inspiration  of  the  great  deeds  of 
common  ancestors,  and  upon  a  home  country. 
Each  of  these  is  important,  but  its  importance 
lies  primarily  in  its  effect  upon  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  individuals  who  make  the  nation, 
rather  than  in  its  immediate  effect.  Belonging 
to  a  Common  race  is  of  value  not  because  it 
gives  an  instinctive  pleasant  reaction,  or  be- 
cause, let  us  say,  that  the  odor  of  another  race 
gives  an  instinctively  unpleasant  reaction,  but 
because  it  is  a  source  of  pride  to  the  members 
of  the  nation  to  believe  that  they  are  all  de- 
scendants of  the  same  progenitors.  It  may  not 
correspond  to  the  facts;  a  belief  in  belonging 
to  the  race  in  question  is  all  that  is  necessary. 
This  is  well  illustrated  by  the  story,  perhaps 
apocryphal,  of  the  negro  soldier  who  spoke  of 
the  effect  upon  the  Germans  of  "us  Angry- 
saxums."  Each  of  the  nations  of  Europe,  no 
matter  how  mongrel,  glories  in  its  assumed 
race,  even  if  a  very  small  proportion  of  the 


246     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

population  really  belongs  to  that  race.  The 
larger  stock  to  which  the  nation  is  assigned 
varies  according  to  the  prestige  of  the  race  in 
question.  The  Englishman  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury ago  gloried  in  being  Teuton,  but  now  makes 
little  mention  of  that  mixture  in  the  population. 
The  race  as  we  use  it  is  largely  an  artifact 
developed  to  give  an  explanation  from  heredi- 
ty of  the  national  consciousness.  A  common 
language  is  of  importance  as  a  medium  for  the 
communication  of  ideas  and  so  to  provide  for 
the  spread  of  ideals.  A  common  history  is  of 
value  in  the  enthusiasm  it  may  excite  for  an- 
cient deeds  and  attainments.  The  "native 
land"  has  the  same  function.  It  provides  a 
physical  center  about  which  fond  associations 
may  cluster.  Each  of  these  factors  is  impor- 
tant in  so  far  as  the  nation  believes  in  them. 
The  nation  is  what  it  believes  itself  to  be.  The 
nation  is  founded  in  ideals,  and  these  are  effec- 
tive in  so  far  as  they  inspire  loyalty.  Loyalty 
in  its  turn  is  pride  in  what  the  members  of  the 
nation  believe  that  nation  to  be  and  a  willing- 
ness to  strive  for  the  ends  which  have  been  ac- 
cepted by  the  group  as  a  whole. 

If,  in  conclusion,  we  attempt  to  define  the 
consciousness  of  nationality  we  may  assert  that 
it  is  an  awareness  of  belonging  to  a  group,  with 
pride  in  the  ideal  notion  of  that  group  as  a 


THE  NATION  AS  IDEAL  247 

separate  entity,  a  willingness  to  be  controlled 
by  the  ideals  of  that  group  and  to  serve  its 
ends.  The  nation  exists  only  in  the  minds  of 
the  separate  members,  but  when  it  does  exist 
it  unites  them  for  action  in  a  way  that  makes 
the  nation  a  force  without  an  equal  in  the  ac- 
complishment of  common  tasks.  The  members 
of  the  group  may  change  but  the  ideals  persist 
in  the  members  who  continue  and  in  those  who 
replace  those  who  fall  out.  The  nation  is  im- 
mortal if  its  ideals  are  suited  to  survive,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  men  who  created  the 
ideals  and  those  in  whom  they  have  been  prop- 
agated have  died  and  are  constantly  dying. 
The  nation  is  an  entity  that  changes  and  grows 
and  still  persists.  It  is  a  force  in  the  world  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  it  is  always  an  ideal  in 
the  minds  of  changing  groups  of  men,  and  an 
ideal  which  controls  the  acts  of  an  ever  shifting 
multitude.  Considerations  like  this  tempt  one 
to  adopt  the  notion  of  the  Hegelians  that  the 
nation  is  a  super-personality  of  divine  origin 
and  guided  by  superhuman  knowledge.  There 
is  no  objection  to  this  if  one  is  content  to  take 
it  as  metaphor  merely,  and  if  one  is  permitted 
to  question  whether  the  force  that  shapes  the 
destiny  of  all  nations  but  one's  own  is  satanic 
or  divine.  It  must  also  be  remembered  that 


248    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

the  nation  always  exists  merely  in  the  individ- 
uals who  compose  it,  even  when  they  regard  it 
as  an  independent  entity,  and  furthermore,  that 
it  exists  for  the  individuals,  not  the  individuals 
for  it. 


NATIONALITY   AND    THE    STATE 

WE  have  been  discussing  the  nation  as  if  it 
were  an  entirely  informal  organization  of  a 
group  of  people  whose  action  was  always  de- 
termined by  the  instincts  and  ideals  of  the  dif- 
ferent groups.  We  have  entirely  neglected  to 
consider  the  organization  of  the  state,  or  its 
relation  to  the  spirit  of  nationality.  The  details 
of  the  organization  fall  well  without  our  prov- 
ince, but  it  will  not  be  out  of  our  field  to  con- 
sider a  few  of  the  general  bearings  of  one  upon 
the  other.  One  might  assume  with  the  philo- 
sophical anarchists  that  a  government  was  un- 
necessary, that  the  human  instincts  were  in 
themselves  all  good  and  that,  were  all  restraints 
removed,  man  would  act  for  the  best  and  all 
individuals  would  be  happy.  An  assumption 
of  this  type  presupposes  that  instincts  are  per- 
fectly adapted  to  the  environment  and  that  they 
alone  would  suffice  to  meet  situations  in  the 
best  possible  way.  This  assumption  is  true 
neither  for  the  higher  animals  nor  for  the  sim- 

249 


250     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

pier  instincts  in  man.  Instincts  as  developed 
care  only  for  the  more  general  situations  and 
for  those  only  in  the  crudest,  most  general  way. 
They  suffice  to  keep  the  individual  alive  during 
the  period  of  learning  and  to  determine  the 
more  general  form  of  response  to  the  new  situ- 
ations. All  else  must  be  learned  and  then  es- 
tablished as  habits.  Even  the  pecking  of  a 
chick,  fundamental  as  that  process  seems,  is 
partly  learned  and  only  partly  instinctive.  At 
first  the  chick  pecks  awkwardly  and  at  any 
small  object;  it  is  only  with  practice  that  it 
learns  to  discriminate  edible  from  inedible  sub- 
stances and  to  make  accurate  movements. 

In  the  more  complicated  responses  of  social 
intercourse  the  instincts  are  still  less  adequate 
to  serve  as  a  complete  guide.  This  is  seen  very 
clearly  in  the  historical  cases  in  which  govern- 
ment has  disappeared  and  only  instincts  were 
left  to  trust  to  for  the  control  of  the  group  or 
society.  Even  the  Russian  mob  which,  if  one 
may  believe  Lincoln  Steffens,  started  the  revo- 
lution with  a  passive  doctrine  of  non-resistance 
that  promised  ideal  relations  based  on  brotherly 
love  alone,  quickly  gave  way  to  bloodthirsty 
acts  and  exhibited  the  lowest  instincts  in  the 
most  unrestrained  way.  Whether  this  is  to  be 
attributed  to  falling  under  the  sway  of  leaders 
in  whom  hate  of  the  wealthy  dominated,  and 


NATIONALITY  AND  THE  STATE        251 

who  came  to  feel  the  necessity  for  executing 
all  possible  successors  that  their  own  rule  might 
be  continued  and  their  lives  saved,  or  whether 
it  is  the  natural  outcome  of  control  by  instincts 
when  all  rule  of  ideal  and  convention  is  relaxed, 
is  not  altogether  clear.  Certain  it  is  that  in 
the  two  conspicuous  instances  in  modern  times 
in  which  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  return 
to  a  natural  existence  with  guidance  by  instincts 
alone,  the  Russian  Revolution  and  the  French 
Revolution,  not  to  mention  the  lesser  experi- 
ment of  the  French  Commune  in  1872,  the  re- 
sults have  been  a  dominance  of  the  worst  rather 
than  the  best  in  man.  The  excuse  that  in  all 
of  these  cases  the  condition  has  developed 
through  reaction  against  tyranny,  when  the 
hates  of  the  old  order  would  naturally  encour- 
age excesses,  does  not  seem  entirely  adequate. 
Even  in  the  communities  which  have  been 
drawn  together  by  desire  of  gain,  the  unor- 
ganized mining  and  oil  camps  of  the  American 
frontier  or  of  Australia  and  Alaska,  freedom 
from  restraint  nearly  always  gives  free  sway 
to  the  worst  instincts. 

If  one  attempt  to  delimit  the  role  of  instinct 
and  ideal  or  law  in  the  control  of  man's  action 
in  society,  it  would  seem  that  the  two  are  re- 
lated very  much  as  are  instinct  and  habit  in 
the  control  of  the  acts  of  the  individual  man 


252     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

or  animal.  The  fundamentals  are  prescribed 
by  instincts,  the  refinements  must  be  added  by 
learning.  Instincts  may  be  pictured  as  a  rough 
hewing  of  the  acts  to  make  sure  that  they  will 
be  performed  somehow,  but  as  leaving  much 
room  for  improvement  by  knowledge.  In  the 
social  arrangements,  man  is  provided  with  a 
set  of  vigorous  reactions  which  are  to  be  ap- 
plied when  he  is  the  subject  of  oppression,  when 
a  fight  is  necessary;  with  another  set  of  re- 
sponses that  are  called  into  action  when  faced 
by  overpowering  force ;  with  another,  still,  that 
is  to  be  applied  when  one  of  his  own  species  or 
of  any  species  which  may  even  by  personifica- 
tion be  brought  into  the  same  class  with  him- 
self is  suffering;  but  which  of  these  responses 
shall  be  evoked  in  any  particular  connection 
is  not  absolutely  determined.  One  may  classify 
the  situations  or  stimuli  in  terms  of  experience, 
and  in  the  contemplative  human  type  of  action, 
response  waits  upon  this  classification.  It 
therefore  becomes  the  deciding  factor  in  de- 
termining what  reaction  shall  be  made.  The 
selection  from  among  the  possible  responses  to 
a  given  situation  is  determined  by  this  classi- 
fication. One  can  see  the  operation  of  this 
selection  best  in  the  action  of  the  human  emo- 
tions. In  a  given  situation  one  may  frequently 
either  become  angry,  be  frightened,  or  amused 


NATIONALITY  AND  THE  STATE        253 

according  to  the  interpretation  that  one  puts 
upon  the  various  circumstances.  A  remark,  for 
example,  will  be  a  pleasantry  or  an  insult  ac- 
cording to  the  tone  in  which  it  is  uttered  or  the 
previous  relations  to  the  man  who  makes  the 
remark.  It  depends  upon  a  rather  delicate 
estimate  of  personal  strength  and  the  strength 
of  an  opponent,  whether  one  becomes  angry  or 
afraid,  and  whether  in  consequence  one  attacks 
or  runs,  when,  let  us  say,  one  is  forced  to  deal 
with  a  drunken  bully,  an  infuriated  horse,  or 
bull. 

Where  the  estimates  must  be  made  by  a 
crowd  in  a  moment  of  excitement  or  when  much 
is  at  stake,  all  may  turn  upon  some  chance  cir- 
cumstance. A  mob  will  vary  in  its  action  from 
the  extremes  of  sympathy  and  helpfulness  to 
the  most  fiendish  brutality  with  little  change 
in  the  circumstances.  Whether  a  prisoner  is  to 
be  classed  by  a  revolutionary  mob  as  a  pleas- 
ant, inoffensive  old  man  or  one  of  the  hated 
oppressors  will  depend  upon  such  a  slight 
factor  as  a  remark  of  one  of  the  crowd  who 
remembers  a  kind  deed,  or  upon  the  remem- 
brance by  another  of  some  time  when  he  has 
applied  for  work  in  desperation  to  another 
member  of  the  employing  class  and  been  re- 
fused, perhaps  by  a  man  who  resembles  this 
one  in  dress  or  stature.  The  old  emotion  is  re- 


254    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

aroused  and  the  victim  perishes  through  his 
denunciation  or  by  his  overt  act.  In  the  actual 
contact  with  problems,  instinctive  reactions  are 
determined  by  such  slight  factors  and  the  char- 
acter of  the  reaction  is  so  vital  that  alone  they 
are  a  very  unsatisfactory  guide.  The  psycho- 
logical justification  of  government,  if  one  is 
needed,  is  to  be  found  in  the  method  that  it 
affords  of  standardizing  these  responses  and 
freeing  them  so  far  as  is  possible  from  control 
by  chance  and  arbitrary  elements. 

In  essentials,  ideals  have  been  seen  to  furnish 
rules  of  conduct  based  upon  a  determination 
of  what  is  most  satisfactory  in  the  light,  not  of 
crude  instinct,  but  of  instinct  guided  and  con- 
trolled by  experience  which  has  been  summed 
up  in  what  we  call  intelligence  or  reason.  As 
opposed  to  instincts,  this  means  action  on  ra- 
tional grounds.  In  common  sense  terms  the 
opposition  is  between  doing  what  one  pleases 
and  doing  what  is  right.  This  opposition  is 
not  absolute,  because  where  right  is  taken  to 
mean  harmony  with  the  most  enlightened  ex- 
perience, right  is  what  one  would  choose  did 
one  take  all  of  the  circumstances  and  all  of  the 
effects  of  action  into  consideration,  rather  than 
the  few  circumstances  and  few  effects  that  in- 
fluence instinct.  Informally  these  results  of 
experience  are  embodied  in  conventions,  stand- 


NATIONALITY  AND  THE  STATE        255 

ard  forms  of  response  or  acts  that  are  tacitly 
accepted  as  norms  of  conduct  by  all  of  the  mem- 
bers of  society.  Their  growth  has  been  shown 
to  be  through  trial  and  error,  the  acceptance 
of  acts  which  have  proved  useful  and  the  rejec- 
tion and  reprobation  of  acts  that  were  found 
on  trial  to  produce  disagreeable  consequences. 
Formal  government  is  to  be  looked  upon  as 
the  embodiment  of  these  successful  conventions 
and  rules  of  conduct.  At  first  one  can  make 
sure  that  the  rules  shall  be  enforced  by  giving 
them  a  divine  origin.  It  was  ordained  by  the 
gods  that  reparation  should  be  made  for  life 
taken  wilfully;  later  they  prescribed  that  there 
should  be  no  killing,  etc.,  as  in  the  command- 
ments given  to  Moses  on  stone  tablets.  All 
through  the  earlier  stages  the  enforcement  of 
the  conventional  rules  even  when  they  were 
given  a  divine  origin  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
individual  and  was  always  subject  to  the  whim 
of  the  stronger,  and  open  to  contest  by  the  man 
upon  whom  it  was  inflicted.  Gradually  the  con- 
ventional law,  which  has  been  accepted  inform- 
ally, is  expressed  in  definite  statutes  and  some 
one  is  given  or  assumes  the  authority  of  seeing 
that  it  shall  be  enforced.  We  need  not  run 
through  the  various  stages  in  the  development 
of  government.  As  all  else  in  evolution  it  was 
at  first  crude  and  the  means  used  were  or  seem 


256     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

to  us  to-day  unnecessarily  harsh,  for  the  end  to 
be  accomplished.  The  chief  or  king  would  en- 
force the  penalties  of  the  law  with  the  purpose 
of  making  sure  that  he  maintained  his  authority 
rather  than  to  prevent  the  suffering  of  others. 
It  was  only  after  much  experience  and  much 
knowledge  of  human  nature  under  many  differ- 
ent conditions  that  it  was  possible  to  consider 
the  rights  or  the  comfort  of  the  offender. 

If  we  look  at  the  fundamental  question  of  the 
control  and  the  source  of  authority  for  govern- 
ment in  general  that  has  been  so  important  in 
all  of  the.  theories  of  political  science,  we  must 
find  it  in  the  agreement  of  its  methods  and  ef- 
fects with  the  ideals  of  the  people  who  are 
governed.  Each  of  the  theories  of  the  origin 
of  authority  probably  can  be  supported  as  an 
explanation  or  partial  explanation  through  rea- 
son for  the  particular  form  that  government 
took.  The  patriarch  probably  received  his  first 
authority  from  the  fact  that  he  was  the  oldest 
member  of  the  group  and  stood  to  the  others 
in  the  relation  of  father  to  son.  It  was  natural 
that  his  authority  should  be  accepted.  His 
development  into  a  king  was  again  natural  with 
the  increase  in  the  kin  over  whom  he  ruled  and 
the  additions  to  the  tribe  by  conquest  and  as- 
similation. As  the  king  became  inefficient, 
natural  leaders  would  tend  to  take  his  place 


NATIONALITY  AND  THE  STATE        257 

with  the  development  of  aristocracies,  or,  if  the 
selfish  interests  of  the  king  overcame  his  ten- 
dency to  care  for  the  good  of  the  whole,  he 
would  be  overthrown.  In  all  forms  of  govern- 
ment one  finds  that  the  accepted  good  of  the 
governed  and  harmony  with  the  ideals  of  the 
social  mass  determine  the  form  of  the  govern- 
ment. If  one  form  gives  good  results  and  the 
community  is  pleased,  the  government  is  con- 
tinued and  arguments  from  religion,  from  the 
greatness  and  success  of  the  ruler,  from  the 
glory  gained  for  the  nation  by  the  acts  of  the 
leader  and  of  the  whole  nation  are  used  to 
justify  the  continuance  of  the  power.  When 
the  form  of  government  is  unsuccessful,  there 
will  be  grumbling,  but  it  will  nearly  always  be 
continued  for  a  time  because  of  the  arguments 
that  have  been  accepted  to  enforce  the  rule  of 
the  good  government.  They  will  be  too  strong 
to  yield  at  once  to  the  evidence  of  facts.  After 
a  particular  ruler  has  been  unsuccessful,  or  a 
particular  administration  has  failed,  the  form 
of  government  will  persist  for  a  time  in  the 
hope  that  the  personnel  of  the  ruler  or  of  the 
rulers  may  change  for  the  better  and  the  good 
old  time  return.  Habit  is  always  strong  with 
the  mass.  All  through  the  early  ages,  save  for 
a  period  in  Greece  and  Rome  emphasis  was  put 
upon  the  maintenance  of  the  particular  form 


258     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

of  government,  upon  the  right  of  the  king  to 
rule,  rather  than  upon  the  real  source  of  power. 
When  it  became  evident  that  the  government 
must  derive  its  authority  from  the  consent  of 
the  governed  as  it  did  first  in  modern  times  in 
England,  France,  and  America,  attempts  were 
again  made  to  develop  a  theory  that  should  give 
a  rational  warrant  for  government.  This  we 
see  in  Eousseau's  famous  theory  of  natural 
rights  and  the  social  contract  in  which  it  is 
asserted  that  man  is  born  with  a  right  to  do  as 
he  pleases  and  that  he  early  consented  to  part 
with  some  of  his  rights  for  the  good  of  himself 
and  his  fellows.  Each  limited  his  rights  on 
condition  that  others  would  limit  theirs  for  the 
mutual  benefit  of  all,  a  suggestion  in  which 
he  had  been  partly  anticipated  by  Locke.  His- 
tory and  what  knowledge  we  have  of  primitive 
peoples  afford  no  warrant  for  the  belief  that 
the  process  of  developing  a  government  had 
any  of  the  self  and  other  conscious  bargaining 
that  Eousseau  suggests.  Probably  before  man 
had  a  knowledge  of  the  needs  for  government 
and  any  such  concept  as  right,  he  was  already 
part  of  some  community  or  other,  through  the 
action  of  his  social  instincts,  and  group  ideals 
had  begun  to  develop.  Eousseau's  and  similar 
theories  are  interesting  in  so  far  as  they  em- 
phasize the  modern  tendency  to  derive  the 


NATIONALITY  AND  THE  STATE       259 

authority  of  government  from  the  community 
as  such,  rather  than  from  a  divine  warrant  or 
from  mere  tradition  or  from  respect  for  elders. 
Viewed  in  the  large,  governments  may  be 
thought  of  as  means  of  subordinating  immedi- 
ate instincts  to  the  control  by  knowledge  and 
experience — to  guide  acts  towards  others  by  the 
results  of  earlier  results  of  such  acts  and  to 
properly  classify  them  for  instinctive  reaction. 
The  forms  of  government  developed  from  the 
conditions  of  life,  modified  by  trial  and  error. 
One  might  assume  that  all  forms  go  back  to  the 
patriarchal,  but  if  so  they  would  be  modified 
in  various  ways  by  the  exigencies  of  different 
peoples  living  under  divergent  conditions. 
When  a  modification  comes  that  gives  satis- 
factory results,  it  persists ;  when  unpleasant  or 
undesirable  results  appear,  the  government  is 
either  overthrown  or  modified  to  give  greater 
satisfaction.  One  may  think  of  the  develop- 
ment of  government  as  a  process  of  trial  and 
error.  The  various  suggestions  grow  out  of 
antecedent  forms  of  control,  the  family,  the 
more  extended  chieftainship,  the  priest,  or  what 
not.  Success  or  failure  is  measured  by  the  sur- 
vival of  the  group,  in  the  final  analysis,  and 
before  that  by  the  satisfaction  or  happiness  of 
the  individuals  in  the  state.  One  must  not  think 
of  the  origin  of  government  as  altogether  ra- 


260     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

tional  and  voluntary  on  the  part  of  the  indi- 
viduals who  are  involved  in  the  government, 
either  as  ruler  or  ruled.  Occasionally,  par- 
ticularly in  modern  times,  a  scheme  of  govern- 
ment has  been  worked  out  theoretically  and 
applied  in  practice,  sometimes  successfully,  at 
times  unsuccessfully.  Locke  suggested  a  form 
of  government  for  the  colony  of  Carolina  which 
seems  to  have  been  moderately  successful. 
More  often  a  suggestion  as  to  a  desirable 
method  of  government  or  change  in  government 
has  been  obtained  from  a  neighboring  state. 
Maitland 2  instances  the  transfer  of  the  jury 
system  from  England  to  the  continent  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  It  was  adopted  at  first  in 
minute  detail,  although  later  was  changed  to 
suit  the  new  conditions.  Much  less  successful 
were  the  attempts  to  borrow  other  forms  of 
government  by  the  leaders  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution. They  modeled  their  form  of  govern- 
ment upon  England  and  the  old  Greeks. 
Although  both  had  been  successful  in  the  land 
of  their  origin,  the  attempt  to  transfer  resulted 
in  a  disastrous  failure.  It  must  be  said  that 
Napoleon's  code,  made  equally  out  of  hand,  was 
on  the  whole  successful.  One  can  see  similar 
instances  of  successful  and  unsuccessful  bor- 
rowing of  forms  and  methods  of  government 

2 Maitland:     "Collected  Papers,"  vol.  3,  pp.  298f. 


NATIONALITY  AND  THE  STATE        261 

in  the  different  states  of  America.  After  all, 
tht  development  of  government  has  its  closest 
analogue  in  the  trial  and  error  and  natural  se- 
lect'on  of  the  biological  evolution,  rather  than 
in  tie  conscious  planning  of  a  rational  being. 
The  suggestions  for  improvement  may  be  given 
by  tie  other  forms  of  government  already  de- 
veloped, or  by  the  imagination  of  some  man  of 
vision.  However  the  suggestions  arise,  they 
must  always  be  tried  in  practice,  and  gradually 
modif  ed  to  meet  the  demands  of  a  nation,  be- 
fore they  can  be  assured. 

The  specific  prescriptions  and  laws  as  well 
as  the  form  of  government  that  enforces  them 
are  constantly  being  tested  by  their  agreement 
with  the  ideals  of  the  community  as  well  as  by 
their  effects  in  practice.  If  a  law  is  promul- 
gated that  seems  to  work  injustice  to  a  large 
proportion  of  the  members  of  a  community, 
they,  at  least,  will  work  for  its  revocation  and 
if  it  proves  to  have  bad  results  it  will  either  be 
repealed  or  ignored.  In  a  democratic  state 
where  the  laws  are  made  by  the  votes  of  the 
people  or  by  their  representatives,  the  initiation 
of  the  law  will  be  due  to  a  belief  on  the  part  of 
some  considerable  portion  of  the  community 
that  it  will  improve  the  existing  condition.  This 
anticipation  will  be  checked  by  its  effects  in 
practice,  and  thus  the  laws  become  an  embodi- 


262     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

ment  of  the  ideals  of  the  nation.  As  opposed 
to  the  control  by  instinct,  this  means  that  each 
act  will  be  tested  not  by  the  instinctive  appeal 
of  the  moment  with  the  uncertainty  of  iiter- 
pretation  of  the  situation  that  results  from  that, 
but  by  instincts  checked  by  ideals,  and  by  ex- 
perience. Then,  too,  each  individual  who  reads 
the  law  will  pass  upon  it  in  part  by  instinct  as 
well  as  by  knowledge  and  reason,  so  that  the 
final  test  is  by  man's  original  nature  plus  ex- 
perience instead  of  by  his  instinct  alone. 

After  the  action  has  been  decided  upon  in 
the  light  of  the  prescription  of  the  law,  the  act 
itself  will  have  all  of  the  characteristics  of 
instincts  and  will  arouse  all  of  the  emotions 
that  attach  to  instinctive  acts.  If  the  law  or 
convention  prescribes  charitable  care,  the 
emotion  of  pity  and  the  joy  of  helpfulness  will 
be  aroused  as  completely  as  if  the  act  were  done 
without  forethought,  i.  e.,  on  mere  impulse.  If, 
on  the  contrary,  punishment  is  prescribed,  the 
act  of  punishment  arouses  the  emotions  con- 
nected with  vengeance.  True,  the  execution  of 
the  law  may  and  probably  should  be.come  im- 
personal and  unemotional,  but  the  attitude  of 
the  public  that  impels  to  the  enforcement  will 
be  accompanied  by  emotion,  and  this  in  part 
gives  force  to  the  public  opinion.  One  may 
think  of  the  law  as  a  process  of  restraining 


NATIONALITY  AND  THE  STATE        263 

action  until  the  situation  has  been  properly 
classified  and  the  plan  of  action  determined  in 
the  light  of  the  best  knowledge  of  the  com- 
munity. After  the  classification  has  been  made, 
the  action  is  carried  out  in  accordance  with  the 
instinct  in  whose  class  it  belongs,  and  the  cor- 
responding emotion  will  be  aroused  in  the 
natural  way.  This  statement  does  not  take  into 
account  the  fact  that  the  individual  may  be 
aided  in  executing  the  act  by  other  members  of 
the  state  upon  whom  the  duty  has  been  imposed, 
but  considers  only  the  individual's  part  in  the 
act.  One  can  see  in  the  numerous  added  tests 
and  safeguards  of  the  correctness  of  action  that 
this  process  of  law  throws  around  it,  why  action 
in  accordance  with  law  should  be  more  suited 
to  its  ends  than  purely  instinctive  responses 
such  as  are  made  by  the  mob  when  it  attempts 
to  enforce  its  authority. 

In  general,  the  relation  of  the  state  to  the 
nation  is  that  the  state  embodies  and  provides 
a  means  for  realizing  the  ideals  of  the  nation. 
The  rulers  will  be  guided  by  those  ideals  in 
their  acts  even  when  they  seem  arbitrary,  and 
in  the  modern  state  the  laws  will  be  an  out- 
growth of  the  ideals  and  will  be  tested  by  the 
sentiment  of  the  nation  before  passage  and 
their  effects  will  be  tested  by  similar  compari- 
son with  ideals  and  with  public  opinion.  So 


far  as  the  general  rule  goes  all  is  smooth  sail- 
ing. Of  course,  in  practice  the  relation  is  not 
so  simple.  The  interests  of  all  members  of  the 
state  or  nation  are  not  identical.  Where  they 
come  into  conflict,  methods  must  be  developed 
of  harmonizing  the  conflicting  interests,  or 
some  means  of  deciding  which  of  the  irrecon- 
cilable interests  shall  be  permitted  to  have  its 
way.  These  methods  of  making  decisions  on 
disputed  points  have  also  become  convention- 
alized and  reduced  to  laws.  They  are  probably 
more  important  in  the  function  of  the  modern 
state  than  are  the  means  of  enforcing  generally 
accepted  ideals  where  such  exist.  A  large  part 
of  the  modern  development  of  states  has  been 
made  possible  by  a  willingness  to  abide  by  the 
opinions  of  a  majority,  to  accept  apparent  or 
actual  loss  of  personal  advantage  in  the  in- 
terests of  harmony,  and  even  to  give  over  ideals 
which  seem  right  in  the  face  of  a  vote  in  favor 
of  other  ideals  by  the  greater  number  of  the 
community. 

Even  this  process  is  tempered  and  modified 
by  the  existence  of  ideals.  Most  states  have 
laws  or  principles  behind  laws  which  prevent 
a  majority  from  depriving  the  minority  of 
rights.  One  cannot  invade  the  home  of  the  in- 
dividual except  under  definitely  stated  condi- 
tions, one  cannot  prescribe  religious  beliefs  or 


NATIONALITY  AND  THE  STATE        265 

interfere  with  freedom  of  speech  even  if  the 
religion  of  the  few  or  the  opinions  expressed 
by  them  be  distasteful  to  the  many.  The 
state  cannot  divide  the  property  of  the  few 
among  the  many  even  if  the  many  vote  for  the 
division.  These  exceptions  are  made  because 
of  a  belief,  in  certain  cases  based  on  trial,  that 
the  welfare  of  the  state  and  so  of  the  individual 
in  the  long  run  and  on  the  average  will  be 
furthered  if  the  action  of  the  majority  be  lim- 
ited in  this  respect.  The  man  without  property 
hopes  to  acquire  it  later  and  desires  to  be  able 
to  keep  it  when  he  gets  it,  the  man  with  no  new 
theory  of  government  or  religion  knows  that  he 
may  have  one  later  and  desires  to  be  free  to 
expound  it,  or  he  may  see  and  have  proved  by 
test  that  a  state  or  society  advances  more 
rapidly  and  is  more  contented  if  each  man  is 
left  free  to  think  and  say  or  do  what  he  pleases 
within  limits  that  do  not  conflict  with  the  free- 
dom of  others.  This  again  is  a  case  of  adjust- 
ing acts  to  the  advantage  of  the  future  instead 
of  the  present  alone  and  of  considering  the 
greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number  for  all 
time  rather  than  the  immediate  advantage  or 
apparent  immediate  advantage  even  of  the 
majority. 

How  far  the  ideals  of  the  nation  and  the 
formal  prescriptions  of  the  state  will  coincide 


266     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

varies  with  circumstances.  In  nearly  every  age 
there  is  some  lack  of  harmony  from  the  fact 
that  the  ideals  grow  more  rapidly  than  they  can 
be  embodied  in  laws  and  also  because  laws  are 
continued  after  the  ideals  have  changed.  This 
is  a  condition  that,  with  the  modern  mecha- 
nisms, tends  to  right  itself,  although  in  the 
period  of  lack  of  harmony  the  result  may  be 
very  irritating.  More  important  in  many  of 
the  modern  states  is  the  problem  that  arises 
when  more  than  one  nationality  and  more  than 
one  set  of  national  ideals  chance  to  be  repre- 
sented in  the  same  state.  Here  again  the  atti- 
tude of  the  modern  state  is  to  treat  the  differ- 
ences in  nationality  much  as  one  does  differ- 
ences in  religion.  The  essential  ideals  will  be 
common  to  all.  These  may  be  enforced.  The 
unessential  must  be  permitted  to  stand  freely 
and  each  nation  be  compelled  to  respect  or  at 
least  refrain  from  interfering  with  the  others. 
Where  this  course  has  been  followed  there  has 
usually  resulted  an  amalgamation  of  one  by  the 
other  or  the  fusion  of  both  into  a  common  new 
group  that  offers  a  permanent  solution  of  all 
the  problems.  Where  attempts  are  made  to 
force  a  people  to  give  up  its  national  language 
or  any  of  its  national  peculiarities  or  ideals, 
the  result  is  usually  to  arouse  the  emotions  of 
hate  with  the  result  of  intensifying  national 


NATIONALITY  AND  THE  STATE        267 

feeling  and  keeping  it  more  distinct  than  it 
would  otherwise  be.  This  can  be  seen  with 
Danes,  Poles,  and  Alsatians  in  Germany,  and 
with  the  minor  sections  in  the  various  regions 
of  Austria.  A  state  is  probably  strongest  when 
it  has  but  one  nationality,  but  unity  cannot  be 
forced  upon  it.  National  ideals  must  be  ac- 
cepted willingly  or  not  at  all. 

The  relation  of  the  state  to  the  nation  took 
a  practical  form  in  connection  with  the  draw- 
ing of  boundaries  at  the  peace  conference. 
There  were  many  places  where  state  lines  and 
national  lines  did  not  agree  and  where  it  was 
difficult  to  make  them  agree  unless  one  disre- 
garded all  economic  considerations  and  all 
problems  of  ease  of  administration.  If  one  as- 
sume for  the  moment  that  we  were  to  be  given 
authority  to  adjust  these  problems  and  were 
also  given  omniscience  for  the  facts,  a  solution 
in  the  light  of  our  principles  must  follow  several 
different  rules.  The  first  is  that  any  division 
must  be  made  as  nearly  as  possible  on  the  lines 
of  nationality.  Nationality  is  not  a  matter  of 
inheritance  primarily,  but  of  ideals.  It  is  an 
affair  of  the  mind  or  spirit,  not  of  length  or 
breadth  of  head  or  even  of  physical  relation- 
ship. The  only  way  to  decide  whether  an  in- 
dividual belongs  to  one  nation  rather  than  an- 
other is  to  ask  him.  While  his  answer  is  not 


necessarily  infallible,  since  he  may  not  appre- 
ciate what  his  ideals  are  in  every  case,  it  is 
more  likely  to  be  right  than  any  other.  It  does 
not  necessarily  follow  that  in  practice  nation- 
vality  is  to  be  the  only  consideration  in  the 
creation  of  a  new  state.  After  all,  nationality 
is  not  absolutely  fixed.  As  we  have  had  occa- 
sion to  see  in  several  connections  nationality 
and  the  ideals  of  nationality  are  subject  to 
change,  and  on  occasion  where  any  possible 
division  will  do  violence  to  some  principle  of 
nationality  one  must  accept  the  best  solution 
possible  and  trust  to  adjustment  of  nationality 
with  time. 

Other  circumstances  that  must  be  taken  into 
account  are  the  economic  relations  and  the  ease 
of  government.  A  state  should  have  easy 
communication  with  its  markets,  and  the  in- 
dustries of  one  part  of  its  territory  should,  if 
possible,  supplement  those  of  another.  Also 
where  small  colonies  of  one  nationality  are  in- 
terspersed among  other  nationalities  or  within 
a  single  nation,  it  would  be  difficult,  if  not  im- 
possible, to  administer  a  government  for  each 
nationality.  In  such  cases  any  solution  will  be 
unfair  and  have  its  disadvantages.  All  that 
can  be  suggested  is  to  follow  the  national  lines 
wherever  that  will  give  a  unit  of  homogeneous 
people  of  suitable  size.  Each  of  these  units 


should  be  sufficiently  provided  with  lines  of 
communication,  and  with  correlated  industries 
to  be  economically  independent.  On  the  bor- 
derlands inhabited  by  mixed  races,  the  wishes 
of  the  majority  of  the  inhabitants  should  be 
considered  first,  but  where  these  were  too  seri- 
ously in  conflict  with  economic  conditions,  the 
best  compromise  possible  must  be  made.  After 
an  adjustment  has  been  reached  it  should  be 
open  to  change  in  the  light  of  later  experience. 
It  will  always  be  tempered  by  the  fact  that 
members  of  the  minority  nationality  can  move 
to  a  region  where  their  own  people  predominate, 
and  also  by  the  fact  that  under  any  fair  gov- 
ernment the  individuals  after  a  time  are  likely 
to  change  their  ideals  to  conform  to  those  of 
the  majority — will  become  naturalized. 

These  general  principles  were  accepted  in 
principle  by  the  peace  conference.  Poland  is 
to  be  given  an  outlet  through  Danzig,  the  claim 
of  the  Slavs  to  an  outlet  on  the  Adriatic  is  rec- 
ognized at  the  moment  by  all  but  the  Italians, 
who  have  an  adverse  claim.  The  supposed  ma- 
jority of  inhabitants  decided  the  boundary  be- 
tween Roumania  and  Hungary  and  between 
Germany  and  Denmark,  although  any  division 
would  necessarily  leave  Roumanians  in  Hun- 
gary and  Magyars  in  Roumania.  After  a  de- 
cision has  been  made,  each  state,  new  and  old, 


270     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

must  exercise  toleration  if  the  lot  of  the  mi- 
nority is  to  be  bearable.  In  an  enlightened  state 
this  should  not  be  difficult.  There  are  always 
differences  of  opinion,  many  times  on  matters 
that  are  as  important  and  as  much  a  source  of 
irritation  as  nationality.  Some  we  have  already 
mentioned  in  this  chapter;  religion,  economic 
theories  and  the  resulting  political  beliefs,  race 
prejudices,  apart  from  differences  of  nation- 
ality, are  all  as  keen  and  as  difficult  to  over- 
come as  national  differences.  Nevertheless 
they  are  subjects  on  which  all  modern  states 
recognize  the  right  of  individual  opinion  and 
even  of  individual  expression,  and  in  most 
states  working  agreements  have  been  reached 
which  permit  amicable  relations  between  op- 
posing parties.  Development  of  a  habit  of  for- 
bearance on  these  matters  will  no  doubt  prepare 
the  way  for  a  similar  toleration  with  reference 
to  nationality. 

On  the  whole,  the  national  boundaries  would 
follow  linguistic  lines  as  well.  The  common 
means  of  communication  implies  the  develop- 
ment of  common  ideals,  and  a  common  history 
will  give  at  once  common  language  and  common 
ideals.  Exceptions  will  occur  to  any  one.  The 
most  prominent  at  present  is  probably  in  Al- 
sace and  Lorraine  where  French  sentiments  are 
found  in  people  who  speak  the  German  Ian- 


NATIONALITY  AND  THE  STATE        271 

guage.  It  was  true  under  the  French  rule  that 
the  language  was  German  and  under  the 
attempted  suppression  of  the  French  language 
in  all  places,  use  of  French  actually  increased. 
Even  where  the  language  did  not  become 
French,  French  ideals  and  the  French  nation- 
ality dominated.  While  the  language  spoken 
by  a  people  is  probably  the  safest  objective  in- 
dex of  nationality,  it  is  only  an  index  and  cannot 
be  trusted  against  the  expressed  desires  of  the 
inhabitants.  In  considering  the  subsidiary  fac- 
tors in  rearranging  state  lines,  however,  lan- 
guage might  well  be  taken  account  of  as  well 
as  the  economic  factors.  Other  things  equal, 
a  state  that,  speaks  but  one  language  is  much 
easier  to  govern  than  one  of  polyglot  races. 
"Where  nationality  fails  to  follow  linguistic 
lines,  and  the  feeling  of  nationality  is  accen- 
tuated, nationality  must  be  given  right  of  way. 
It  is  more  important  than  anything  else. 

It  must  be  said  that  where  for  any  reason 
language,  economic  interests,  or  ease  of  admin- 
istration tends  to  require  the  erection  of  a  state 
or  a  division  of  sovereignty  along  other  than 
national  lines,  there  is  always  danger.  What- 
ever solution  is  reached  is  certain  to  be  more 
or  less  unsatisfactory;  one  is  presented  with  a 
choice  of  evils.  In  a  situation  such  as  that  in 
Ireland,  where  national  aspirations  are  at 


272    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

variance  with  both  the  economic  interests  and 
the  convenience  of  government  and  where  in 
addition  it  seems  that  there  is  no  particular 
desire  for  a  solution,  any  decision  is  sure  to  be 
unfortunate.  Here  the  south  of  Ireland  cannot 
and  is  not  willing  to  exist  without  Ulster,  and 
Ulster  cannot  and  will  not  be  prosperous  with- 
out connection  with  England.  Furthermore  any 
division  that  may  be  attempted  is  bound  to 
leave  territory  with  a  bitterly  resentful  mi- 
nority under  the  dominion  of  both  sides,  a 
strong  minority  whose  national  alignments  and 
business  interests  lie  with  the  other  group. 
Even  a  plebiscite  would  probably  give  no  com- 
plete satisfaction,  for  all  might  be  impoverished 
with  the  destruction  or  impairment  of  business 
relations.  In  any  case  as  much  would  be  deter- 
mined by  choice  of  the  districts  within  which 
the  votes  should  be  taken  as  by  the  results  of 
the  balloting  itself.  Where  there  is  no  spirit 
of  compromise  or  toleration  on  either  side  as 
seems  to  be  the  case  in  Ireland,  no  arbitrary 
selection  of  a  principle  to  use  in  solving  the 
problem  is  of  value.  Nor  can  one  trust  to  the 
influence  of  time  to  soften  the  opposition.  The 
more  one  nationality  asserts  itself,  the  stronger 
is  the  opposition  from  the  other.  Should  one 
side  give  up,  which  is  unlikely,  the  other  might 


NATIONALITY  AND  THE  STATE        273 

become  tolerant.     No  solution  proposed  holds 
any  great  promise  of  success. 

It  is  evident  that  the  nation  derives  its 
authority  and  entire  raison  d'etre  from  the  na- 
tion. The  nation  is  cause,  the  state  effect. 
Government  is  the  agency  by  which  the  nation 
as  a  mental  entity  expresses  its  ideals  and  com- 
pels its  members  to  live  in  accordance  with 
them.  The  ideals  that  develop  in  the  nation 
find  expression  in  the  form  of  government  first 
and  then  in  the  specific  laws  and  in  the  acts  of 
executives  and  the  judiciary.  We  need  not  as- 
sume that  the  ideals  become  fully  conscious  be- 
fore they  are  formulated  or  embodied  in  gov- 
ernment; rather,  the  state  develops  by  a 
tentative  process.  Some  form  of  government 
appears  by  chance,  if  it  is  successful — if  it 
works — it  is  continued;  if  not,  a  new  form  is 
tried.  The  results  are  constantly  tested  by  the 
instincts  and  ideals.  The  government  must 
pass  the  test  of  permitting  the  individual  to 
satisfy  his  fundamental  instinctive  needs  and 
must  also  harmonize  with  his  developed  social 
standards  and  ideals  of  right.  These,  too,  grow 
with  life  in  the  state,  and  with  the  development 
of  new  ways  of  living.  As  the  ideals  of  the 
nation  grow  they  must  find  expression  in  new 
laws  or  the  old  laws  must  be  interpreted  and 
executed  in  a  new  spirit.  That  the  change  in 


274    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

social  order  frequently  shows  itself  in  a  change 
in  the  interpretation  of  the  laws  rather  than  in 
the  passage  of  new  laws  is  one  of  the  best  evi- 
dences of  the  dominant  influence  of  ideals.  We 
can  find  evidence  of  this  in  the  gradual  elimi- 
nation of  the  king  from  all  but  a  formal  part 
in  the  government  of  England  and  in  the  de- 
velopment of  such  a  legal  fiction  as  the  "benefit 
of  clergy"  which  made  endurable  the  severe 
penalties  of  the  criminal  law  long  after  people 
in  general  had  forgotten  what  the  legal  defini- 
tion of  clergy  or  clerk  really  was. 

The  laws  are  formulated  ideals.  They  are  of 
value  primarily  because  they  anticipate  situa- 
tions which  the  individual  would  not  know  how 
to  classify  in  the  light  of  instinct  alone  or  of 
his  own  experience.  When  tested  they  give  the 
individual  an  approved  standard  of  conduct 
that  represents  the  experience  of  the  commu- 
nity, even  of  civilized  society  everywhere, 
rather  than  his  own  instincts.  As  an  instru- 
ment of  enforcing  the  laws,  the  state  may  be 
regarded  as  a  means  of  providing  physical 
backing  to  the  force  of  ideals.  Even  here  the 
authority  of  the  executive  rests  both  ultimately 
and  immediately  upon  the  ideals  of  the  nation 
or  of  the  smaller  group  and  the  instinctive  fear 
of  the  group  or  respect  for  public  opinion.  An 
important  element  is  respect  for  the  law  and 


NATIONALITY  AND  THE  STATE        275 

for  the  officers  of  the  law  in  and  of  themselves. 
There  is  something  even  in  the  most  sophisti- 
cated adult  citizen  of  the  small  boy's  fear  of 
the  policeman  which  is  one  phase  of  respect 
for  law  as  law  and  for  the  officers  of  the  state, 
irrespective  of  their  personal  character.  This 
is  partly  habit,  partly  perhaps  derived  from 
theoretical  considerations  that  the  law  should 
have  weight  so  long  as  it  is  law.  Both  are 
ultimately  expressions  of  the  instinctive  dislike 
of  disapproval  of  the  mass.  The  officer  becomes 
the  embodiment  of  the  law  as  the  law  is  the 
formulation  of  the  ideals  of  society.  Where 
the  law  is  out  of  harmony  with  the  ideals  it  will 
be  nullified  or  disregarded  by  mere  popular 
consent  as  has  happened  with  the  blue  laws  of 
New  England. 

It  may  be  again  emphasized  in  summary  that 
the  nation  develops  first,  the  state  later  or  pari 
passu  with  it.  Last  of  all  comes  the  theoretical 
or  rational  justification.  Whether  it  be  the  as- 
sertion of  the  divine  origin  which  was  made  to 
support  the  older  autocratic  forms  or  the  social 
contract  theory,  or  theory  of  the  rights  of  man 
which  were  adduced  to  sanction  the  modern 
democratic  state,  they  are  arguments  developed 
after  the  fact  to  explain  or  justify  the  estab- 
lished order  rather  than  statements  of  the  way 
in  which  the  state  or  nation  really  arose.  After 


276    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

a  state  has  existed  long  enough  for  the  habits 
of  acting  in  accordance  with  its  rules  to  be 
firmly  established,  it  seems  that  no  other  con- 
dition is  possible.  Then  many  men  are  ready 
with  theories  and  arguments  to  prove  that  it 
must  have  been.  These  arguments  do  not  state 
the  real  reasons  for  the  existence  of  the  state; 
rather  they  are  devised  to  prove  what  needs  no 
proof  and  to  give  formal  justification  for  the 
existence  of  a  condition  long  accepted  and  de- 
veloped, no  man  knows  how. 

In  short,  the  state  in  all  of  its  phases  and 
characteristics  can  be  understood  only  in  its 
relations  to  the  nation.  It  grows  out  of  the 
national  ideals,  derives  its  final  authority  from 
public  opinion,  and  is  merely  an  instrument  by 
which  the  nation  as  an  organized  mental  unity 
may  express  itself  and  control  the  acts  of  its 
members.  It  takes  form  slowly  by  a  tentative 
process  of  trial,  for  ideals  are  not  clearly  con- 
scious in  the  minds  of  the  individuals  that  con- 
stitute the  nation,  the  only  consciousness  that 
it  has,  but  are  frequently  merely  vague  striv- 
ings for  a  better  condition.  As  each  change  in 
law  or  form  of  government  is  made,  it  is  tested 
by  its  results  and  accepted,  if  satisfactory. 
While  the  state  never  is  in  complete  harmony 
with  the  ideals  of  the  nation,  either  because  the 
state  has  not  yet  grown  to  the  nation,  or  the 


NATIONALITY  AND  THE  STATE        277 

state  persists  as  the  embodiment  of  older  ideals, 
nevertheless  the  ideals  of  the  nation  set  the 
standard  towards  which  the  state  must  strive, 
and  where  the  two  come  into  conflict  the  nation 
will  always  emerge  supreme. 


CHAPTER  X 

NATIONALITY     AND     SUPER-NATIONALITY    AS     EX- 
PRESSED  IN   A  LEAGUE    OF   NATIONS 

THE  principles  of  social  psychology  upon 
which  nationality  depends  are  fundamentally 
two :  the  common  instincts  and  the  ideals  which 
develop  through  these  instincts  acting  in  and 
upon  the  experience  of  peoples.  The  instincts 
are  fixed  and  the  same  for  all  individuals  in 
whatever  society  found;  the  ideals  are  an  ex- 
pression of  the  experience  of  the  individual 
group  and  of  the  conditions  under  which  it  has 
developed.  The  instincts  constitute  what  we 
are  accustomed  to  call  the  immutable  laws  of 
human  nature,  while  the  ideals  may  change  as 
experience  dictates.  Fortunately  the  more 
important  elements  in  the  development  of  na- 
tionality are  the  ideals  and  so  may  be  made 
over  to  suit  the  changing  conditions  and  give 
room  for  growth  in  the  general  organization 
or  in  the  detailed  character  of  the  different 
states.  The  instincts  force  some  sort  of  liv- 
ing together,  they  make  possible  cooperation 
through  sympathy,  and  they  enforce  ideals  by 

278 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS     279 

the  instinctive  respect  for  the  opinions  of 
others  and  by  the  fear  of  the  disapproval  of 
the  group,  expressed  either  in  the  immediate 
presence  of  a  crowd  or  by  public  opinion  in 
tradition  or  in  the  press.  The  latter  instincts 
give  the  ideals  and  conventions  of  a  nation  the 
impelling  force  of  instincts  at  the  same  time 
that  they  permit  adaptability  to  the  changing 
conditions. 

This  distinction  is  of  great  importance  when 
we  approach  the  questions,  "Is  nationality  the 
last  word  in  political  organization,"  and  "Is  it 
possible  to  go  beyond  and  find  a  larger  unity 
in  a  community  of  states'?"  Were  the  national 
organization  dependent  upon  instinct  alone,  the 
problem  could  not  be  asked.  A  nation  once 
formed  would  be  a  closed  unit,  its  members 
would  be  bound  together  by  natural  ties — all 
outside  the  group  would  be  forever  distasteful 
to  all  within  and  there  would  be  no  hope  for  a 
change  of  any  sort.  As  nationality  is  largely 
dependent  upon  the  development  of  ideals  and 
a  new  ideal,  when  developed,  has  the  force  of 
instinct,  it  is  always  possible  to  make  progress. 
New  organizations  may  arise  in  the  midst  of 
old  and  old  organizations  may  be  extended  to 
include  outside  elements.  These  changes  in 
the  old  nations  have  always  characterized  the 
history  of  peoples,  just  as  changes  in  allegiance 


280    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

are  important  phenomena  in  the  modern  shift- 
ing1 of  populations. 

When  we  face  the  pressing  problem,  whether 
the  psychology  of  nationality  involves  any  prin- 
ciples that  would  make  impossible  the  develop- 
ment of  the  wider  international  state  or  league 
of  nations,  we  naturally  ask  how  many  of  the 
instincts  and  ideals  effective  in  the  nation  are 
compatible  with  the  development  of  a  wider 
union.  It  may  be  said  at  once  that  all  of  the 
true  instincts  are  quite  as  much  suited  to  the 
international  or  super-national  organization  as 
to  the  national.  One  may  confidently  assert 
that  the  development  of  the  national  spirit  has 
come  about  by  a  restriction  of  the  natural  range 
of  the  social  instincts  by  training  rather  than 
by  any  unnatural  extension  of  them.  Sympathy 
and  fear  naturally  are  not  respecters  of  per- 
sons and  recognize  no  limits  of  race  or  lan- 
guage. With  the  setting  off  of  smaller  groups 
through  associations  they  are  perhaps  un- 
equally distributed,  more  keenly  aroused  by  the 
members  of  the  narrower  circles  and  vary  in 
strength  inversely  in  proportion  to  the  distance 
from  the  center.  It  is  only  artificially  that  these 
instincts  have  been  restricted  in  their  applica- 
tion to  members  of  one  nation. 

What  has  made  the  nations,  as  may  be  seen 
clearly  in  history,  is  the  development  of  common 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS    281 

ideals.  These  are  based  on  instincts  but  the 
form  that  they  shall  take  is  due  to  the  experi- 
ence of  the  nations  and  of  the  individuals  that 
compose  it.  They  change  as  conditions  change. 
Just  as  they  have  been  expanded  from  the  tribe 
or  similar  small  group,  to  the  city,  and  from  the 
city  to  the  empire,  so  they  may  readily  spread 
to  include  many  or  all  of  the  civilized  nations. 
Of  the  ideals  that  at  present  guide  the  nations 
many  are  common  to  all.  There  is  no  nation 
in  which  there  is  not  at  least  lip  worship  for 
the  principles  of  human  liberty  and  democracy. 
All  at  least  approve  the  same  general  principles 
of  ethics  and  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  suffi- 
ciently unprejudiced  observer  to  say  where 
these  principles  are  least  respected  in  practice. 
One  might  object  that  the  dislikes  between 
nations  are  too  strong  ever  to  be  overcome.  If 
one  grant  the  strength  of  the  national  preju- 
dices, it  must  also  be  remembered  that  they  are 
conquered  or  forgotten  daily  with  reference  to 
individuals.  The  national  differences  are  by  no 
means  so  marked  as  many  others  that  are  per- 
mitted to  exist  within  each  nation.  There  are 
many  antipathies  between  geographically  dis- 
tinct groups,  or  between  different  social  strata 
or  even  political  parties  and  religions  that  are 
stronger  than  those  between  nations.  Every 
nation  has  at  times  had  differences  in  religion 


282     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

that  have  either  threatened  or  have  actually 
brought  on  physical  conflicts.  It  is  quite  as 
easy  to  arouse  a  Protestant  native  to  the  fight- 
ing point  by  stating  that  a  Catholic  church  is 
bringing  in  boxes  of  rifles  as  it  would  be  by 
telling  him  that  a  Polish  society  had  conducted 
the  same  campaign.  Just  now  more  excitement 
would  be  aroused  if  it  were  a  German  society 
that  was  suspected,  but  that  may  be  regarded 
as  a  temporary  condition.  The  readers  of  the 
Menace  have  much  more  bitterness  towards  the 
Pope  and  the  local  clergy  than  they  have  for 
Austria,  and  certainly  more  than  they  had  for 
Germany  five  years  ago.  On  the  whole,  re- 
ligious differences  have  been  overcome.  No  in- 
telligent man  in  any  civilized  country  would 
think  seriously  of  stamping  out  a  religious  be- 
lief or  preventing  religious  practices  that  were 
not  abhorrent  to  his  humanitarian  or  moral 
ideals. 

The  conflicts  between  political  parties,  even 
when  they  have  ceased  to  stand  for  any  impor- 
tant differences  in  principle,  are  stronger, 
often,  than  the  dislikes  of  nations.  We  have 
seldom  had  a  war  in  which  the  members  of  an 
opposite  political  party  would  subordinate  its 
interests  completely  to  the  interests  of  the 
country  as  a  whole.  The  New  England  Federal- 
ists in  the  War  of  1812  would  smash  the  coun- 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS    283 

try  rather  than  give  over  their  political  and 
business  practices ;  some  of  them  would  rather 
see  the  war  lost  than  have  the  Democrats  ob- 
tain the  credit  of  winning  it.  The  northern 
Democrats  in  the  Civil  War  gave  only  grudging 
adherence  to  Lincoln,  and  it  is  not  unfair  to 
say  that  the  debates  in  this  war  have  had  al- 
most as  much  reference  to  what  party  should 
have  the  credit  for  saving  the  country  or  civil- 
ization as  to  how  and  whether  it  should  be 
saved.  This  is  in  part  pure  selfishness  on  the 
part  of  the  leaders  who  see  themselves  out  of 
a  job  if  party  differences  should  disappear,  but 
in  part  it  is  shared  by  their  followers  who 
would  regard  the  dissolution  of  the  Republican 
or  of  the  Democratic  party  as  a  real  calamity, 
commensurate  in  importance  with  the  disin- 
tegration of  the  nation.  At  any  given  point 
in  the  controversy  they  would  secretly  prefer  to 
see  the  nation  go,  but  consideration  of  the  con- 
sequences, the  fact  that  the  party  would  go 
with  the  nation  and  their  interests  with  the 
party,  restrains  them. 

Even  more  prominent  and  decidedly  more 
vital  are  the  commercial  and  business  disputes. 
But  these  are  quite  as  strong  between  indi- 
viduals and  classes  of  the  same  nation  as  be- 
tween nations.  There  is  no  more  logic  in  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States  becoming  excited 


284    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

because  an  American  company  is  debarred  from 
transacting  business  in  China  or  should  have 
difficulty  in  collecting  a  debt  in  Africa  than 
that  a  citizen  of  Chicago  should  be  disturbed 
because  another  man  in  the  same  city  has  lost 
money  by  the  repudiation  of  a  debt  by  one  of 
the  southern  states.  It  is  to  the  interest  of  all 
that  good  laws  should  exist  everywhere.  These 
arrangements  have  little  or  nothing  to  do  with 
the  wider  groupings  of  nations  or  super-na- 
tions. Wherever  one  sees  wrong  done  one  re- 
sents it  and  where  that  wrong  is  done  to  one 
of  one's  own  political  group  the  resentment  is 
increased  and  may  lead  to  revenge  or  punish- 
ment. The  impulse  is  common  to  all  humanity 
in  varying  degree,  irrespective  of  the  closeness 
of  relation  to  aggressor  or  victim.  The  prac- 
tical dangers  can  be  avoided  either  by  making 
sure  that  no  harm  is  done  or  by  providing  a 
way  of  righting  the  wrong  that  shall  not  depend 
upon  the  separate  national  organization. 

The  strongest  antagonisms  are  those  that 
arise  between  the  supporters  of  different  the- 
ories of  government,  not  between  political 
groups.  A  Socialist,  a  Bolshevist,  or  an  I. 
W.  W.  might  conceivably  object  when  a  wealthy 
corporation  obtained  a  decree  that  should  en- 
able it  to  collect  a  debt,  even  a  just  debt,  from 
a  member  of  the  proletariat,  but  there  is  no 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS    285 

reason  why  he  should  object  more  if  the  cor- 
poration have  its  home  office  in  Tokio  than  in 
London  or  New  York.  So  long  as  disputes  are 
being  settled  every  day  within  the  nations  that 
offer  very  much  more  cause  for  friction  and 
dispute  than  many  or  most  that  would  arise  be- 
tween nations,  there  is  no  occasion  for  regard- 
ing the  solution  of  the  problems  of  practical 
organization  of  international  judicial  machinery 
as  impossible.  In  these  alone  can  we  see  any 
real  danger  to  the  development  of  a  wider  union 
of  peoples. 

The  existence  of  national  rivalries,  even  oft 
national  hates,  need  offer  no  more  difficulty  in 
practice  than  do  the  individual  and  local  rival- 
ries to  the  working  of  the  present  political  in- 
stitutions. After  all,  just  as  sympathy  is  great- 
er, the  rivalry  between  neighbors  is  keener  than 
that  between  individuals  on  the  opposite  sides 
of  the  ocean  or  the  opposite  sides  of  the  earth. 
The  hates  between  men  of  different  social  posi- 
tions in  the  same  town  or  nation  are  stronger 
and  can  be  less  easily  obviated  than  the  hatred 
between  men  of  different  civilizations.  It  is 
much  more  of  a  problem  to  find  an  equitable, 
or  at  least  a  universally  acceptable  means  of 
dividing  the  proceeds  of  industry  between  capi- 
tal and  labor  than  to  devise  a  scheme  by  which 
Eussian  and  Australian,  or  Englishman  and 


286     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

Hottentot  may  live  together  upon  the  earth 
without  interfering  with  each  other.  The  prob- 
lems that  do  arise  between  the  different  races 
are  the  same  as  those  that  arise  within  the  races 
and  are  less  acute  in  form  because  the  contacts 
are  less  frequent.  On  the  negative  side,  then, 
there  is  no  more  reason  why  there  should  not  be 
an  international  organization  than  a  national 
one.  In  each  case  the  bond  has  grown  far  be- 
yond the  range  of  personal  acquaintance  and 
in  one  case  not  so  much  farther  than  the  other 
as  to  make  a  difference  in  kind.  Granting  that 
there  will  never  be  a  disappearance  of  national 
rivalries,  we  should  recognize  also  that  these 
are  no  more  inimical  to  the  existence  of  inter- 
national community  of  spirit  than  are  the  more 
local  rivalries,  even  the  individual  rivalries,  to 
the  narrower  state  or  national  consciousness. 
These  local  rivalries,  at  present,  certainly  aid 
as  much  as  they  hinder  the  development  of  the 
wider  bond. 

If  the  jealousies  between  nations  are  not 
sharper  than  those  between  individuals  and 
groups  within  the  nations,  there  is  every  hope 
that  an  international  organization  may  be  suc- 
cessful. No  one  thinks  of  restricting  the  belief 
of  the  citizens  of  a  state  in  religious  matters, 
nor  in  the  field  of  political  theory,  two  sys- 
tems that  have  in  the  past  been  as  fruitful  of 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS    287 

conflict,  even  of  wars,  as  have  the  national  at- 
tachments. In  an  international  state,  if  the 
machinery  of  an  international  state  were  to  be 
developed,  one  would  expect  the  national  spirit 
of  each  nation  to  persist,  one  would  even  ex- 
pect the  conflicts  of  these  aspirations  to  con- 
tinue, but  to  have  them  settled  in  some  rational 
way.  Just  as  the  rivalries  of  individuals  in 
any  state  constitute  an  element  of  strength  to 
the  nation  as  a  whole  or  the  rivalries  of  cities 
and  of  larger  subdivisions  constitute  a  factor 
that  makes  for  the  progress  of  the  nation,  so 
the  rivalries  of  the  nations  might  very  well  be 
an  element  in  inciting  to  progress  in  the  inter- 
national community.  In  our  American  cities 
one  of  the  incentives  to  improvements  of  all 
kinds  is  the  desire  to  be  better  or  not  more 
backward  than  others  that  claim  to  be  rivals. 
A  similar  rivalry  between  what  are  now  sepa- 
rate nations  need  not  interfere  with  the  proper 
coordination  of  all  in  the  efforts  for  peace. 

Only  where  questions  of  boundary  or  of  busi- 
ness dealings  enter  need  there  be  any  difficulty 
in  the  adjustment,  and,  after  all,  these  are  just 
the  problems  that  the  courts  of  our  present 
states  settle.  The  issues  between  states  nearly 
always  go  back  to  issues  between  individuals 
with  only  the  additional  complication  of  decid- 
ing who  shall  settle  them.  There  was,  for  ex- 


288    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

ample,  no  question  as  to  the  punishment  that 
should  be  given  to  the  assassin  of  the  Crown 
Prince  of  Austria.  The  war  came,  ostensibly, 
at  least,  over  deciding  who  should  investigate 
and  the  insistence  of  the  Austrians  that  the 
Serbian  state  should  be  subordinated  to  the 
Austrian  in  the  investigations  on  Serbian  soil. 
Provided  only  that  some  tribunal  exists  which 
is  recognized  as  fair  and  as  having  authority  to 
settle  disputes,  there  need  be  no  serious  con- 
troversies even  over  these  questions.  This  is 
all  the  more  probable  if,  with  the  habit  of  ap- 
peal, national  honor  becomes  less  touchy,  as 
would  be  the  natural  tendency.  After  all,  the 
individual  has  no  vital  direct  interest  in  the 
aggrandizement  of  the  national  territory.  His 
interest  in  the  expansion  of  the  nation  is  an 
indirect  and  acquired  one,  and  while  it  will 
probably  never  be  lost  no  matter  how  com- 
pletely an  international  organization  may  be 
developed,  it  can  be  expected  to  become  more 
rational,  more  restricted,  to  shrink  to  some- 
thing like  the  rivalry  between  the  states  in  the 
United  States  of  America.  A  century  ago,  still 
more  at  the  time  of  the  formation  of  the  Union, 
the  states  had  each  its  own  honor  and  pride 
that  threatened  war  on  several  occasions  over 
the  adjustment  of  boundaries.  To-day,  we  see 
new  divisions  made  as  of  the  Dakotas  and  recti- 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS    289 

fications  of  boundaries  suggested  with  no  feel- 
ing at  all  except  on  the  part  of  a  few  people 
who  see  some  direct  effect  upon  their  financial 
prosperity.  An  instance  of  such  a  friendly  ad- 
justment of  a  national  ambition  was  recently 
given  when  Norway  was  established  as  an  in- 
dependent state. 

What  we  must  hope  to  develop  in  an  inter- 
national state  is  a  condition  in  which  competi- 
tions and  the  emotions  that  grow  out  of  compe- 
tition shall  be  between "  the  individuals  and 
classes  of  individuals  rather  than  between  na- 
tions,— that  the  competition  of  nations  shall 
be  restricted  to  matters  directly  connected  with 
nationality,  and  that  a  national  matter  shall  not 
be  made  of  purely  individual  business  affairs. 
Most  of  the  dangerous  rivalries  of  the  modern 
industrial  state  arise  from  conflicts  in  competi- 
tion for  trade.  A  firm  of  one  country  fails  to 
make  a  sale  in  competition  with  a  firm  of  an- 
other country.  It  believes  that  it  is  due  to 
prejudice  or  to  undue  activity  of  the  officials 
of  the  successful  country,  and  bad  blood  arises. 
An  international  agreement  should  insure 
equality  of  treatment  so  completely  that  there 
is  no  room  for  suspicion  and  no  necessity  for 
the  interference  of  the  national  government  out- 
side of  its  own  territory.  Then  competition 
would  be  between  individuals  and  there  would 


290    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

be  no  occasion  for  raising  questions  of  national 
honor  over  any  trade  matters.  An  interna- 
tional tribunal  might  be  necessary  to  adjust 
disputes  between  citizens  of  different  countries, 
but  they  would  soon  come  to  be  adjusted  as  dif- 
ferences between  individuals  and  not  between 
nations.  Then  national  rivalries  might  well  be 
confined  to  competitions  in  advancing  general 
order  and  welfare  and  not  to  quarrels  over  the 
minor  advantages  of  citizens. 

If  we  find  that  rivalries  and  sources  of  dis- 
agreement are  no  sharper  between  nations  than 
between  groups  within  nations,  we  may  also 
say  that  many  of  the  ties  which  unite  men  most 
strongly  do  not  stop  at  the  national  boundaries. 
We  all  have  scientific  friends  of  other  nations 
who  are  in  closer  sympathy  with  our  views  than 
some  of  our  own  citizens.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  political  theories,  of  religious  belief,  and 
certainly  of  literature  and  art.  The  best  illus- 
tration is  the  international  socialist  movement. 
To  be  sure,  this  very  fortunately  or  unfor- 
tunately, as  one  thinks  of  our  own  socialists  or 
of  the  enemy's,  was  not  strong  enough  to  stand 
the  feeling  or  emotion  of  nationalism  in  war 
time.  But  the  sentiment  of  solidarity  between 
members  of  the  proletariat  is  growing  faster 
than  the  similar  feeling  between  the  members  of 
the  employing  group. 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS    291 

The  fundamental  sympathies  are  by  no  means 
restricted  by  national  boundaries.  While  one 
may  close  one 's  eyes  or  ears  against  knowledge 
of  distant  atrocities  when  they  are  brought  to 
our  attention,  one  is  impressed  if  not  overcome 
by  stories  of  massacres  of  Armenians  or  of 
the  Africans  in  the  Congo,  almost  as  much  as 
by  the  atrocities  in  Belgium.  In  case  the  event 
is  striking  and  a  large  number  of  individuals 
are  involved,  a  distant  event  attracts  more  at- 
tention and  more  sympathy  than  the  ordinary 
mishaps  even  if  in  the  total  they  result  in  more 
suffering  than  the  single  tragedy.  Deaths  from 
influenza  arouse  less  emotion  than  do  the  bat- 
tle casualties  of  half  the  amount.  An  air  raid 
that  causes  fifty  deaths  in  Paris  or  London  ex- 
cites the  populace  even  of  New  York  or  Chi- 
cago much  more  than  the  motor  vehicles  that 
kill  ten  times  the  number  in  the  streets  of  the 
home  city.  This  is,  of  course,  partly  because 
the  blame  may  be  definitely  attached  in  one  case 
and  not  in  the  other,  partly  because  the  latter 
is  a  series  of  incidents  far  enough  apart  so 
that  one  is  forgotten,  if  heard  of  at  all,  before 
the  next  appears. 

Making  all  allowances  for  incidental  differ- 
ences, it  is  clear  that  the  sympathetic  emotions 
may  be  sufficiently  aroused  by  events  that  in- 
jure distant  men  and  even  men  of  the  lower 


292     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

races  to  back  up  a  judicial  and  executive  au- 
thority in  the  infliction  of  punishment  upon  in- 
ternational criminals.  That,  after  all,  is  the  es- 
sential factor  in  the  development  of  a  practical 
internationalism.  While  the  sympathetic  emo- 
tions may  weaken  with  distance,  the  disagree- 
able emotions  of  hate  and  resentment  also  show 
a  similar,  probably  even  a  greater,  reduction  so 
that  the  balance  is  not  far  from  equal.  One 
cannot  expect  the  enthusiasm  for  man  in  gen- 
eral to  attain  the  strength  of  the  emotion 
aroused  by  an  appeal  for  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
or  for  La  France  or  the  King.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  whole  world  or  mankind  in  general 
will  not  arouse  the  same  hatred  as  that  we  now 
see  exhibited  towards  the  German  or  the  Turk. 
It  might  be  objected  that  the  distances  which 
separate  the  different  parts  of  the  world  in 
space  and  still  more  in  ideals  are  so  great  that 
one  can  never  hope  to  bring  them  into  the 
unified  attitude  towards  problems  that  are  es- 
sential for  the  proper  control  of  the  actions  of 
each  by  a  common  ideal.  Two  answers  may 
be  made  to  that.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  modern  inventions  bring  the  world 
as  a  whole  into  closer  communication  than  was 
thought  possible  within  many  of  the  single 
states  of  antiquity  in  which  the  national  spirit 
developed.  For  the  purpose  of  obtaining  news 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS    293 

and  the  diffusion  of  ideas  all  parts  of  the  world 
are  mechanically  one  through  the  agency  of  the 
press  and  the  telegraph.  The  general  spread 
of  literacy  has  increased  the  possibility  of  a 
common  understanding,  and  furthered  the  de- 
velopment of  common  ideals  and  the  resulting 
common  control,  so  that  there  is  more  of  unity 
between  America  and  Australia  to-day  than 
between  neighboring  parts  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire of  old  or  between  different  provinces  of 
the  Chinese  Empire  to-day.  Probably  the  in- 
telligent classes  of  Russia  and  America  are  also 
more  closely  one  than  were  Egypt  and  Gaul  at 
the  time  of  Christ.  At  the  other  social  extreme, 
the  I.  W.  W.  and  the  Russian  Bolshevist  are 
equally  moved  by  the  same  ideals  and  active 
in  a  common  cause  as  is  seen  by  the  protest  of 
the  Bolshevists  against  the  execution  of 
Mooney,  however  little  we  may  grant  that  they 
understood  the  circumstances  and  the  mo- 
tives of  that  conviction.  Taking  ease  of  com- 
munication, degree  of  intelligence,  and  possi- 
bility of  mutual  confidence  into  consideration, 
we  can  safely  say  that  the  most  remote  parts  of 
the  civilized  world  are  to-day  more  nearly 
united  and  more  capable  of  constituting  a  single 
social  group  than  were  many  of  the  smaller 
states  even  of  the  medieval  and  early  modern 
period. 


294    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

The  only  one  of  the  fundamental  instincts 
which  has  been  important  in  the  formation  of 
nations  which  would  be  lacking  in  the  interna- 
tional organization  is  hate,  and  its  similars, 
jealousy  and  suspicion.  In  Chapter  III  we 
traced  the  importance  of  hate  in  uniting  the  na- 
tion against  an  outside  force  or  other  nations. 
If  all  the  nations  were  gathered  into  one  there 
would  be  no  one  to  hate;  at  least,  the  hatreds 
would  always  lead  to  the  disruption  of  the  wider 
union  rather  than  to  its  unification.  The  only 
substitute  for  this  would  be  hatred  of  disrup- 
tion itself,  and  of  the  wars  and  bad  feelings  that 
result.  This  would  not  give  the  same  thrills  and 
enthusiasms  of  hate  that  are  provided  by  the 
hatred  of  persons  and  groups.  The  superna- 
tional  state  might  and  must  be  content  with  the 
cooperative  instincts  as  a  basis  for  its  forma- 
tion, together  with  these  colorless  emotions  of 
opposition  to  abstractions  and  dread  of  the  con- 
dition before  the  universal  state  was  formed. 
Eeligions  seems  to  get  on  fairly  well  since 
heretic  hunting  went  out  of  fashion  and  they 
were  restricted  to  hatred  of  evil  in  the  abstract. 
The  supernationality  must  trust  to  similar  mo- 
tives. For  a  generation  or  two,  it  is  safe  to 
prophesy,  the  human  race  will  be  sufficiently 
impressed  with  the  horrors  of  war  under  mod- 
ern conditions  to  be  united  by  opposition  to 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS    295 

that  alone,  and  by  the  time  that  lesson  has  been 
forgotten  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  habit  of  set- 
tling disputes  by  rational  methods  may  have 
become  sufficiently  well  established  to  be  con- 
tinued. 

Some  have  argued  not  merely  that  an  ex- 
ternal enemy  is  necessary  to  hold  a  nation  to- 
gether, but  that  fighting  itself  is  essential  to 
the  welfare  of  mankind.  Two  arguments  have 
been  advanced  for  this,  one  that  elimination 
of  the  unfit  is  necessary  to  the  process  of  evo- 
lution and  that  war  is  the  one  method  of  elimi- 
nation that  is  left  to  mankind;  another  that 
fighting  arouses  emotions  that  are  essential  to 
the  development  of  the  individual,  or  that  it 
alone  can  produce  the  highest  character.  A 
little  examination  of  each  of  these  assumptions 
shows  that  all  rest  on  fallacious  analogies. 
First,  it  is  probably  true  that  part  of  the  selec- 
tion that  acted  in  eliminating  the  unfit  in  earlier 
times  was  conflict  between  tribes  and  indi- 
viduals. When  fighting  was  with  fists  and 
teeth  or  even  with  bludgeons  and  swords,  the 
strong  man,  the  courageous  and  intelligent 
would  survive  and  the  weak  and  unintelligent 
would  be  eliminated.  Now  that  fighting  is  with 
instruments  of  precision  at  great  distances  and 
between  those  self-selected  for  bravery,  or  se- 
lected after  physical  examination  that  shall 


send  only  the  best  to  fight  while  the  unfit  are 
safe  at  home,  the  condition  is  reversed.  In 
modern  war  the  fit  are  eliminated  and  the  unfit 
survive.  Even  the  German  contention  that 
struggle  between  states  will  select  the  stronger 
states  for  survival  might  well  be  questioned, 
or  at  least  it  may  be  questioned  whether  the 
state  that  survives  in  a  struggle  will  be  of  the 
type  that  is  most  desirable.  One  may  indeed 
doubt  whether  the  world  would  be  better  or 
human  happiness  greater  in  a  world  dominated 
by  the  Germany  of  William  the  Second,  than  in 
one  in  which  there  was  only  the  weak  and  divid- 
ed Germany  of  Goethe,  Schiller,  and  Hegel.  The 
state  fitted  to  survive  in  a  struggle  is  apparent- 
ly the  one  under  an  autocratic  government,  that 
shall  emphasize  the  crass  material  forces  and 
subordinate  the  intellectual  and  artistic.  ,Itl 
must  subject  the  wills  of  the  many  to  the  one 
and  permit  initiative  only  in  the  development 
of  implements  of  war  and  of  the  many  material 
resources  that  add  to  the  effectiveness  of  the 
nation  in  war.  This  may  include  almost  every- 
thing that  improves  effectiveness  in  physical 
ways,  but  at  the  expense  of  intellectual  and  ar- 
tistic values  and  individual  independence.  In 
spite  of  the  efficiency  of  the  latter,  most  civil- 
ized individuals  would  prefer  to  live  in  the  Eng- 
land rather  than  in  the  Germany  of  pre-war 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS     297 

times,  and  it  were  better  for  the  world  to  mul- 
tiply states  like  England,  America,  and  France 
than  like  Germany. 

It  is  also  by  no  means  assured  that  war  is 
necessary  to  develop  the  best  in  man's  physical 
and  mental  nature.  Some  have  asserted  that 
there  are  changes  in  internal  secretion  neces- 
sary to  the  full  development  and  health  of  the 
individual  that  can  be  induced  only  by  fighting. 
Cannon *  finds  that  an  emotion  of  hate  or  anger 
and  even  the  pleasanter  forms  of  excitement 
stimulate  an  increased  secretion  of  the  adrenal 
glands  which  increases  the  strength  of  the  indi- 
vidual temporarily.  These  and  stimulation  of 
other  similar  glands  are  the  most  important  ef- 
fects upon  the  organism  that  would  be  produced 
by  fighting  and  not  by  the  more  routine  forms 
of  bodily  activity.  That  war  is  not  worth  while 
for  the  stimulation  of  these  glands  alone  is  evi- 
dent from  the  fact  that  they  may  be  stimulated 
by  athletic  contests  and  even  by  the  excitement 
of  hard  mental  work  and  mental  contests.  One 
might  well  question  whether  their  stimulation 
in  any  great  amount  is  necessary ;  in  fact,  there 
is  some  evidence  that  the  effect  of  overstimula- 
tion  is  harmful  rather  than  beneficial.  All  that 
is  really  needed  is  that  the  organs  should  not  be 

*W.  B.  Cannon:  "Bodily  Changes  in  Pain,  Hunger,  Fear 
and  Bage." 


298     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

permitted  to  atrophy  through  complete  disuse 
and  present  evidence  is  that  there  is  no  great 
danger  of  that  until  life  becomes  much  less  ex- 
citing than  is  even  peaceful  civilized  existence. 
The  other  argument  for  war  lies  in  the  im- 
provement that  it  is  supposed  to  work  in  the 
moral  nature  of  man.  It  is  held  that  it  is  es- 
sential to  man 's  full  development  that  he  should 
be  able  on  occasion  to  stand  pain,  to  undergo 
every  hardship  for  a  disinterested  end,  and  pre- 
sumably that  war  alone  offers  the  occasion  and 
sufficient  incentive  for  the  degree  of  self-sacri- 
fice needed  to  develop  this  character.  That 
war  does  develop  these  qualities  in  many  is 
undoubted.  Whether  this  alone  would  bei  a 
sufficient  justification  for  war  even  if  the  quali- 
ties could  be  developed  in  no  other  way  is  very 
much  open  to  question.  That  a  nation  should 
sacrifice  fifty  per  cent  of  its  youth  between 
twenty  and  thirty,  as  did  France  in  the  last 
war,  that  great  virtues  might  be  shown  by  the 
other  elements  of  its  population  does  not  appeal 
to  the  rational  mind.  If  the  price  must  be  paid 
at  short  intervals,  the  men  of  virtue  developed 
would  be  too  few  in  number  to  compensate  for 
the  increase  in  quality.  One  must  not  forget  in 
the  reckoning  the  disagreeable  and  injurious 
effects  upon  men's  character.  If  some  men  de- 
velop unsuspected  virtues,  others  develop 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS    299 

equally  unexpected  vices.  Opposed  to  courage 
and  self-sacrifice  is  the  increase  in  cruelty  and 
in  bloodthirstiness,  which  seems  equally  un- 
avoidable in  the  conduct  of  war,  modern  as  well 
as  ancient.  Opposed  to  the  self-denial  of  the 
soldier  and  of  the  patriotic  civilian  who  stints 
himself  that  the  Allies  may  be  fed,  is  the  profi- 
teering of  many  who  like  vultures  treat  a  war 
as  a  time  for  feeding  fat  at  the  public  expense. 
Of  the  returning  soldiers,  some  seem  to  have 
risen  to  new  heights,  these  probably  are  the 
majority;  others  can  find  little  satisfaction  in 
the  monotony  of  peace  after  the  excitement  of 
war,  and  suffer  moral  shipwreck;  still  others 
are  relatively  little  affected.  While  the  virtues 
of  a  nation  at  war  are  impressive,  it  is  question- 
able whether  the  final  benefit  to  character  is 
worth  what  it  cost  the  world  in  the  last  war. 
And  as  James  has  pointed  out  in  his  Moral 
Equivalents  of  War,  almost  if  not  quite  the 
same  effects  may  be  wrought  by  the  conflicts  of 
peace.  It  is  probable  that  the  moral  sacrifices 
made  under  the  more  natural  incentives  of 
peace  are  much  more  valuable  than  those  forced 
by  a  great  war.  A  sufficient  training  can  be 
had  from  the  constant  conflicts  with  evil,  with 
selfishness,  and  ignorance,  offered  in  the  most 
civilized  and  peaceful  of  states,  to  bring  the 
race  to  a  high  standard  of  moral  health. 


300    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

On  the  positive  side  much  may  be  said  even 
from  the  psychological  point  of  view  for  the  de- 
velopment of  a  League  of  Nations.  The  need  is 
readily  apparent.  The  present  relation  of  the 
individual  states  is  similar  to  that  of  individuals 
when  social  organization  was  first  developing. 
While  the  instincts  of  the  individual  in  his  so- 
cial dealings  have  long  been  subordinated, 
whether  he  will  or  no,  to  rational  guidance,  to 
a  course  prescribed  by  the  best  knowledge  of 
the  group,  the  action  of  the  state  is  still  un- 
controlled action  on  impulse.  True,  ideals  of 
international  relationship  have  developed,  rules 
that  are  recognized  as  honorable  for  the  dec- 
laration of  war  and  for  the  conduct  of  war 
when  it  has  been  declared,  but  these  are  fol- 
lowed only  when  it  suits  the  convenience  of 
the  nation  in  question.  The  Germans  had  a 
theory  and  system  of  ideals  of  warfare  at 
variance  with  those  of  the  rest  of  the  world, 
a  theory  that  any  act  however  frightful  which 
produced  results  was  right,  and  there  was  no 
one  to  interfere.  A  specious  argument  sufficed 
to  strengthen  them  in  their  course  in  spite  of 
the  indignation  of  the  world.  Within  the  realm 
of  international  relationships  there  is  only  a 
gentleman's  agreement  on  the  rules  that  shall 
temper  the  cruelty  of  natural  instincts.  When 
a  nation  ceases  to  act  like  a  gentleman  there 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS     301 

is  no  force  that  governs  it,  and  there  is  always 
great  likelihood  that  the  desire  to  be  considered 
honorable  may  break  down  under  pressure.  No 
means  have  been  devised  for  enforcing  ideals 
when  the  nation  in  question  refuses  to  accept 
or  live  up  to  them. 

While  one  might  argue  that  the  decisions  of 
a  nation  are  so  slow  that  they  can  be  subject  to 
none  of  the  precipitateness  of  the  individual 
acts,  that  decisions  of  a  nation  should  be  made 
in  the  light  of  the  ideals  and  experience  of  the 
race  rather  than  in  terms  of  mere  instinct,  this 
seems  in  practice  not  to  be  the  case.  There  is 
all  too  frequently  action  under  the  influence  of 
a  widespread  emotion.  Not  infrequently  selfish 
motives  control  the  rulers,  and  at  other  times 
the  rulers  are  carried  away  by  the  emotion  of 
the  group.  The  problem  is  complicated  for  the 
worse,  too,  by  the  tendency  to  exaggerated  ego 
on  the  part  of  the  state  or  nation  as  a  whole. 
The  reverence  which  individuals  have  come  to 
give  the  state  prevents  its  interests  from  being 
considered  calmly  and  with  due  reference  to  the 
rights  of  individuals  and  of  other  nations.  The 
emphasis  upon  the  welfare  of  the  whole,  which 
was  necessary  to  develop  in  the  individual  a 
willingness  to  sacrifice  his  own  interests  and 
to  subordinate  his  own  instincts  to  the  law, 
has  resulted  in  raising  the  nation  as  a  personi- 


302     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

fied  entity  upon  so  high  a  pinnacle  that  we 
all  incline  to  believe  that  whatever  it  does  is 
right,  and  that  anything  which  will  advance  its 
interests  is  a  sacred  duty,  no  matter  how  much 
suffering  may  be  inflicted  upon  other  indi- 
viduals or  states  in  the  process.  This  belief 
that  national  need  or  even  national  pleasure 
or  desire  is  above  all  law  is  so  strong  that  it 
makes  some  curb  upon  international  action 
quite  as  necessary  as  was  control  of  the  indi- 
vidual in  the  savage  stage.  As  it  is,  claims  are 
made  by  nations  that  would  not  stand  for  a 
moment  in  a  civil  court  in  a  suit  between  indi- 
viduals. 

To  be  sure,  there  is  what  is  known  as  interna- 
tional law,  but  this  is  little  more  than  a  series 
of  precedents  for  international  action.  Its  only 
cogency  is  in  the  force  of  international  public 
opinion.  Where  the  common  decency  is  suffi- 
ciently outraged  by  the  action  of  one  nation 
in  peace  or  in  war,  other  nations  may  inter- 
fere, but  there  is  no  recognized  duty  or  even 
right  of  other  states  to  do  so,  and  no  force 
which  can  be  called  in  to  prevent  intended  or 
threatened  breaches  of  accepted  international 
rules.  That  all  nations  feel  keenly  the  approval 
or  disapproval  of  others  is  shown  by  the  propa- 
ganda carried  on  in  neutral  countries  by  both 
sides  engaged  in  the  Great  War.  Each  step 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS    303 

was  argued  at  length,  after  it  had  been  taken, 
in  pamphlet  and  newspaper  to  influence  the 
opinion  of  the  citizens  of  the  world  or  of  the 
soldiers  engaged.  The  Germans,  in  spite  of 
their  apparent  callousness  to  moral  or  conven- 
tional ideals,  were  evidently  alarmed  at  times 
by  the  universal  condemnation  of  their  acts, 
even  when  they  did  not  accept  the  standards 
of  those  who  condemned  them  or  change  their 
course.  To  be  sure,  the  United  States  was 
driven  into  the  war  in  the  spirit  of  an  interna- 
tional policeman,  by  resentment  at  the  treat- 
ment of  others  as  well  as  by  the  injuries  to 
her  own  citizens,  but  she  delayed  two  years 
before  the  leaders  could  sufficiently  arouse  the 
populace  to  favor  intervention.  At  present 
the  world  is  like  a  primitive  community  with- 
out a  police  force.  One  can  expect  that  when 
an  innocent  pedestrian  is  attacked  by  a  foot- 
pad a  good  citizen  if  near  will  come  to  his  res- 
cue and  perhaps  punish  the  offender.  All  the 
world  will  approve  such  action,  unless  the  mo- 
tives are  misrepresented,  but  there  is  no  or- 
ganized force  for  the  protection  of  the  weak 
or  the  punishment  of  the  guilty  or  even  for  de- 
ciding who  is  guilty. 

From  historical  analogies  the  world  seems 
ready  for  a  wider  organization.  We  saw  in  the 
discussion  of  the  development  of  nationality 


304    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

that  a  nation  was  likely  to  develop  when  an 
ideal  or  set  of  ideals  had  been  prepared  in  the 
mass  of  people  that  were  to  constitute  the  na- 
tion, and  some  great  incentive  came  which  im- 
pelled to  a  realization  of  those  ideals.  The 
ideal  of  a  League  of  Nations  has  been  growing 
and  becoming  ever  more  specific  for  cen- 
turies. The  cynic  might  object  that  the  cen- 
turies of  development  are  so  long  that  there 
is  no  more  hope  now  than  ever — that  Christ 
preached  the  brotherhood  of  man  nearly  two 
thousand  years  ago  and  that  at  short  intervals 
ever  since  some  one  has  repeated  the  plea  and 
suggested  means  for  its  realization.  While 
wars  have  perhaps  been  less  frequent  recently 
they  have  more  than  made  up  in  ferocity.  To 
this  we  must  answer  that  the  ideal  of  com- 
munity of  interests  has  been  growing  more  defi- 
nite and  less  exaggerated.  We  have  not  merely 
the  Utopian  schemes  of  Kant  and  the  general 
practical  plan  of  Metternich,  but  we  have  a 
widespread  belief  in  their  efficacy  on  the  part 
of  the  common  people,  and  we  have  seen  some 
of  them  realized  in  a  small  way  in  The  Hague 
conventions.  Lack  of  confidence  in  any  regu- 
lation on  the  part  of  the  practical  statesman 
or  politician  limited  the  effectiveness  of  these 
agreements,  but  they  did  provide  a  standard 
of  judgment,  even  when  violated,  which  was 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS    305 

not  without  its  effects  in  guiding  the  action 
of  neutral  governments.  Talk  with  any  one  of 
the  common  people,  in  America  at  least,  and 
if  we  may  believe  the  reporters,  in  almost  any 
one  of  the  civilized  countries,  and  one  discovers 
a  widespread  belief  in  the  necessity  for  an  in- 
ternational or  supernational  organization.  The 
ideal  is  prepared  and  generally  accepted. 

The  immediate  incentive  of  escape  from  a 
particular  danger  or  obtaining  relief  from  in- 
justice or  peculiar  suffering,  is  perhaps  not  so 
strong  as  it  has  usually  been  where  nations 
have  developed.  There  was  sufficient  suffering 
in  the  war  just  past  on  the  part  of  the  soldiers 
who  participated,  and  perhaps  still  more  keen 
anguish  felt  by  the  relatives  of  those  who 
fought  and  died  or  were  severely  injured  to 
make  them  willing  to  do  anything  to  avoid  a 
repetition.  The  great  lack  is  that  there  is  no 
one  in  particular  to  blame  for  a  war,  there  is 
as  cause  only  an  impersonal  condition  of  lack 
of  organization;  while  in  the  case  of  the  op- 
pressed peoples  who  have  risen  to  form  a  new 
nation  some  ruler  or  some  other  nation  was  to 
blame  and  could  be  hated  and  fought.  Whether 
the  resentment  against  a  condition  of  society 
and  desire  for  greater  security  from  suffer- 
ing, without  any  reaction  against  an  external 
force  or  individual,  will  suffice  to  hold  the  world 


306    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

together  is  the  question.  That  it  was  sufficient 
to  organize  the  separate  states  on  a  principle 
of  justice  is  assured.  We  may  only  hope  that 
with  the  increase  in  intelligence  and  imagina- 
tion, hatred  of  war  and  injustice  in  the  abstract 
may  be  enough  to  induce  a  general  trial  of 
a  new  system,  and  that  habits  will  develop  after 
it  has  been  tried  that  will  make  possible  for  all 
time  a  rule  of  right  in  international  relations. 

In  no  single  respect  does  the  psychology  of 
nationality  offer  any  reasonable  objection  to 
the  formation  of  an  international  society  or 
League  of  Nations.  It  is  an  obvious  next  step 
in  the  development  of  a  social  organization,  and 
the  social  instincts  and  the  social  ideals  and 
habits  offer  sufficient  basis  for  its  development 
and  for  its  proper  functioning  when  it  has 
been  developed.  The  one  instinctive  or  emo-' 
tional  element  that  is  lacking  to  it  which  has 
been  effective  in  the  development  of  the  pres- 
ent nations  is  the  fear  of  outside  force  and  the 
hatred  of  a  common  oppressor.  Even  this  may 
be  supplied  in  the  same  way  that  fear  of  the 
violence  and  injustice  of  an  unorganized  society 
may  be  said  to  provide  an  incentive  for  the  for- 
mation of  the  local  political  organization.  The 
disorders  and  outrages  of  a  Bolshevist  regime 
serve  as  an  irrefutable  argument  in  favor  of 
any  political  organization,  however  imperfect  it 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS    307 

may  be  in  any  of  its  details.  Similarly,  the  hor- 
rors of  the  most  civilized  of  wars  make  in- 
sistent demand  for  the  development  of  any 
form  of  international  organization  that  prom- 
ises the  least  chance  of  success. 

It  cannot  be  supposed  that  the  interna- 
tional organization  will  greatly  diminish  the 
importance  of  nationality  in  the  world  rela- 
tions. Nations  will  always  exist  as  next  to 
the  largest  unit  of  organization.  It  is  essen- 
tial that  they  should;  no  wider  state  is  con- 
ceivable except  as  an  organization  of  the  pres- 
ent national  states.  It  is  even  questionable 
whether  the  national  pride  will  ever  suffer  seri- 
ous diminution,  however  thoroughly  the  larger 
unit  should  be  organized,  and  however  com- 
pletely it  may  be  accepted  by  the  world  at  large. 
The  most  that  can  be  anticipated,  and  all  that 
is  desirable  is  that  the  excess  of  national  as- 
sertiveness  should  be  subordinated  to  the  good 
of  the  common  whole,  that  national  egotism 
should  be  restrained  sufficiently  to  respect  the 
rights  of  others.  All  that  is  good  in  nationality, 
all  its  enthusiasms  for  the  common  weal,  and 
all  of  the  international  rivalries  might  well 
be  retained  and  transformed  where  necessary 
into  competition  for  the  attainment  of  mutually 
beneficial  ends.  That  the  sentiment  of  loyalty 
to  separate  nations  would  ever  be  greatly  re- 


308     THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  NATIONALITY 

duced  is  not  likely  and  would  be  a  much  to  be 
deplored  result.  It  is  doubtful  if  consciousness 
of  belonging  to  a  world  league  would  ever  re- 
duce the  consciousness  of  being  an  American 
or  a  Frenchman  to  the  extent  even  that  the 
Scotchman  has  been  subordinated  to  the  Eng- 
lishman and  still  less  to  the  extent  that  the 
Yankee  or  Southerner  has  been  subordinated  to 
the  American.  One  may  venture  to  hope  that 
the  remnants  of  a  national  consciousness  might 
become  less  painful  in  the  process  of  subordi- 
nation to  the  wider  loyalty  than  is  the  national 
consciousness  of  the  Irishman.  One  may  well 
question  whether  the  allegiance  to  an  interna- 
tional league  would  ever  take  on  the  personal 
form  of  loyalty  that  is  connected  with  the  na- 
tional consciousness.  It  would  probably  always 
be  more  like  the  general  sense  of  decency  com- 
mon to  all  civilized  beings,  an  extension  of  the 
dictates  of  conscience  from  the  merely  personal 
relations,  as  they  exist  at  present,  to  include 
the  acts  of  nations  as  well  as  of  individuals. 
It  is  not  even  necessary  that  the  entity  should 
be  personified  and  individualized  as  the  nation 
has  been  personified  and  individualized.  But 
with  time  and  the  formation  of  new  habits  of 
thought  and  ideals  of  conduct  the  sense  of  be- 
longing to  a  community  of  mankind  might  well 
be  strengthened. 


NATIONALITY  IN  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS    309 

That  the  first  formulation  of  rules  for  the 
guidance  of  the  wider  league  shall  be  perfect 
is  not  necessary  and  is  not  to  be  expected.  As 
in  the  development  of  all  governments  the  first 
attempt  must  be  tentative,  and  the  instruments 
must  be  tested  in  practice  and  modified  where 
found  defective.  If  the  suggested  draft  of  a 
constitution  shall  be  sufficient  to  tide  the  world 
over  a  few  crises,  and  to  confirm  the  desire  for 
a  working  agreement,  it  will  suffice.  Once  the 
world  accepts  the  principle  that  a  better  way 
than  war  exists  for  the  settlement  of  interna- 
tional disputes,  the  best  machinery  for  settling 
them  will  be  developed  by  a  gradual  process  of 
trial  and  error.  After  the  habit  of  appealing 
to  right  rather  than  to  might  has  been  estab- 
lished, war  will  be  as  unthinkable  as  a  private 
duel.  Meantime  it  is  essential  that  the  broader 
sympathies  now  wasted  in  more  or  less  vague 
sentimentalism  shall  be  crystallized  about  a 
definite  agreement.  When  that  agreement  shall 
have  had  the  tradition  of  a  century  behind  it, 
it  will  be  considered  as  immutable  as  the  good 
lawyer  now  regards  the  constitution,  and  with 
a  few  centuries  of  practice  it  will  assume  the 
fixity  of  the  moral  law. 


INDEX 


America,  Development  of 
nationality  in,  llOff. 

American,  constitution,  as 
an  embodiment  of 
ideals,  232ff 

Anthropometry,  13 

Balch,  Emily,  149 

Baldwin,  45f 

Beginnings    of   nationality, 

91f 

Beliefs,  social,  199ff 
British    constitution    as    an 

ideal,  232 

Cannon,  W.  B.,  297 
Cavell,  Edith,  74 
Clan  system,  7 
Commercial    disputes    as    a 

cause  of  wars,  283f 
Condillac,   109 
Country,    its    effects    upon 

nationality,  237ff 
Criminal  and  society,  79 
Crowds  and  the  leader,  169 
Crowd,  Reasoning  in,  169 

Darwin,  24 

Descartes,  109 

Dress  and  nationality,  152 


Economic      basis      of     the 

state,  268ff 
Emotions  of  the  crowd,  171f 

of  the  nation,  212ff 
Encyclopedists,   109 
England,      Nationality     in, 

103ff 
Environment    and    physical 

characters,  14,  148 

Fighting  instincts  necessary 
for  social  development, 
53f 

France,  Nationality  in,  105f 

French  Revolution,  Nation- 
ality in  the,  115ff 

French  Canadians,  Natural- 
ization of,  131ff 

Frightfulness  as  a  war 
weapon,  72 

Fryatt,  Captain,  74 

German  unity,  Development 

of,  122f 
Germany,     Nationality     in, 

106f 
Government,    developed    by 

trial  and  error,  259ff 
Government  as  embodiment 

of  ideals,  255f 


311 


312 


INDEX 


Greece,  Nationality  in,  93ff 
Gregariousness,  Instinct   of, 

28 
Group,  Fear  of,  32f 

Habits,  Change  of,  in  nat- 
uralization, 141f 
Hate    in    international    or- 
ganization, 294f 
in     the     development     of 

nations,  81ff 
and  religion,  75ff 
and  war,  83ff 

Honor,  national,  215,  220ff 
Hypnotism,    Action    of   the 
crowd      compared      to, 
167ff 
Hume,  109 

Ideals,    Effects   of,   in   nat- 
uralization, 152 

and  the  nation,  224-228 

and    the   League   of   Na- 
tions, 279flf 
Imitation,  45ff 

in  the  crowd,  172ff 
Instincts,    Development    of, 
25ff 

individual  and  racial,  24 

and  feeling,  28 

Social,  28ff 

Crowd  controlled  by,  166- 
175 

and  ideals,  37ff 

Defects  of,  as  a  means  of 
government,  249ff 

and   the   League   of   Na- 
tions, 278 


Intelligence,      Increase      in, 
with    change    of    social 
environment,   149f 
International  law,  302f 
Italy,  Nationality  in,  119f 

James,  24,  299 

Jennings,  64 

Jews,  Nationality  of,  92f 

Keane,  14,  16 
Kellogg,  Vernon,  73 
Kinship,  symbolic,  8 

Laniettrie,  109 

Language    and    nationality, 

17,  143,  236f 
Laws  as  formulated  ideals, 

274ff 

LeBon,  166,  172,  180,  184fl 
Liberty,  ideal  of,  41ff 
Lichnowsky,  82 
Literature   and   nationality, 

236f 

Locke,  260 

Lowell,  A.  Lawrence,  183 
Loyalty     as     measured     by 

willingness     to      fight, 

156f 
Luther,  76 

McDougall,  50 
Maitland,  260 
Marvin,  96 
Mercier,  Cardinal,  74 
Middle  ages,  Nationality  in, 
99f 


INDEX 


313 


Minor  groups  and   the  na- 
tion, 241ff 
Morley,  113 

Nation  as  a  social  concept, 

214,  222f,  235 
National  consciousness,  186ff 
pride    and    the    interna- 
tional state,  301,  307f 
Nationality,  Definition  of,  5 
and  the  state,  249-277 
Theories    of,    23,    164ff, 

240ff 

Netherlands,  Nationality  in 
the,  fOl 

Paramecium ,  illustrative  of 
social  phenomena,  64 

Profession,  Choice  of,  de- 
termined by  social 
ideals,  41 

Party,  Influence  of,  183 

Party  vs.  nation,  283 

Perceptions  of  the  group, 
191ff 

Perla,  215 

Phillpott,  8 

Plato,  6,  109 

Political  ideals,  229ff 

Punishment  by  social  dis- 
approval, 227 

Race  and  family,  6 
and  nation,  3,  245f 
capacity,  12 
Mixtures  of,   in    Europe, 

16 
prejudice,  128 


Religion     and     nationality, 

243 
Rivalry  of  nations  a  source 

of  progress,  285ff 
Rome,  Nationality  in,  96ff 


School    and    naturalization, 

145f 

Schurz,  Carl,  136,  149 
Social      alignments      deter- 
mined by  hate,  67f 
contempt   as    a   force    in 

naturalization,  140f 
ideals,  32ff 

Conflict  of  with  racial 

and  individual,  44f 
Development  of,  54ff 
instincts,  development  of, 

49 
Socialism     a     doctrine     of 

hate,  80f 

Stephenson,  N.  W.,  81 
Suggestibility  of  the  crowd, 

170 
Switzerland,  Nationality  in, 

lOlff 

Sympathy,  29f 
developed   from   maternal 

instinct,  50f 
international,  290ff 


Tagore,  12 

Tarde,  45f,  173,  180 

Thought  of  the  nation,  181, 

192  to  206 
Totem,  9 


314 


INDEX 


Value  as  social  conventions, 

38f 
Voltaire,  109 

Wallace,  Graham,  51 
War   essential   to   progress, 
294  to  299 


Wealth    as    a   social    ideal. 

226ff 
Will   of   a    nation,   206    to 

209,  210 


Zimrnern,  95,  164,  237 


